llUwtWl

illlllllllllilll
wifmffffffffi'iiiiriiifflifiiiitM

rnfffftTT'ifir

Hi! Ill

,, "f^ve thefe B aoics-
foK:^e;fd^^^if.(£(iolUgei?ut^i^fioi6ttyl

THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES

THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES

THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
IN THE LIGHT OF THEIR ORIGIN
AND HISTORY

BY

AMOS KIDDER PISKE
AUTHOR OF "MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB"
AND "BBYOND THE BOURN"

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896

Copyright, 1896, by
CHARLES SCRIENER'S SONS

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY

TO
FRANCIS JAMBS CHILD
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

PREFACE
The purpose of this volume is to present the
history and literature of the ancient Hebrews, as
contained in the Old Testament, in a clear, concise,
and candid way, accepting the benefit of the light
revealed by modern research and learning, and
applying the same calm judgment to which we are
accustomed in dealing with the productions of
other ancient peoples. The writer lays no claim
to special erudition or to original research. With
a keen interest in the subject and a studious
searching of the Jewish Scriptures themselves in
our English version, he has endeavored to absorb
for his own enlightenment the results of the
studies of the great scholars of Europe upon the
subject during the last thirty years, and has tried
to condense within the compass of one moderate
volume the fruits of that endeavor.
With so large a subject and with such a vast
and varied mass of material, in order to attain
this result it has been necessary to sacrifice detail,

viii PREFACE
to forego discussion, to refrain from citations and
references, and to be content to accept conclusions
as established and to compress their statement as
much as practicable, without loss of that clearness
and color .that are essential to interest. It is a
subject upon which full knowledge is unattainable,
and in accepting such conclusions as seemed to
be well supported the writer has not felt bound
to disregard innate probability or the analogies of
human history and experience.
The plan of the work has been to extricate the
story of the life of the people of Israel from the
tangled web into which it was wrought by the
writers of half a thousand years, and, with such
aid as may be got from other sources, to make a
plain delineation of it as a background upon which
to exhibit the designs of those writers ; and then
to place the several books of the great composite
volume in their proper setting, so as to reveal their
origin, character, and purpose as clearly as this
can now be done.
The author has not concerned himself with theo
logical views of the subject. He considers all
truth sacred and nothing worthy of credence that
will not bear scrutiny, and his hope has been to
enable the " ordinary reader " to share the privi-

PREFACE ix
lege of the scholar and the divine, in studying
with greater interest and higher appreciation the
remarkable productions of the ancient Hebrew
genius. He cannot but think that this will con
tribute in the long run to a better understanding
of their lessons and a sounder application of the
teaching to be derived from them.
A. K. F.
New York, February, 1896.

CONTENTS

BACKGROUND OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
PAGE
I. The Bieth of Hebrew Liteeatuee, . . 3
II. The Infancy of Israel,  9
III. Legendaby Ancestors, . . 14
IV. Servitude in Egypt,  17
V. The Great Deliveeance, .... 20
VI. Eaely Conceptions of Deity, ... 25
VII. The God of Israel, .... 30
VIII. Invading the Promised Land, ... 37
IX. The Conquest of Canaan, ... 44
X. The Degeneration of Jehovism, ... 51
XI. The Childhood of the Nation, ... 55
XII. Setting up a Kingdom,  64
XIU. The Fiest King, . .... 68
XIV. David as an Outlaw,  74

CONTENTS

XV. A Dynasty Established, .
XVI. The Reign of David, .
XVII. The Glory of Solomon, .
XVIII. Insurrection and Secession, .
XIX. The Two Kingdoms,
XX. First Written Literature,
XXI. The First Sacred History,
XXII. The Elohist Version,
XXIII. The Ancient Prophets,
XXIV. The Earliest "Prophecies," .
XXV. The Great Isaiah,
XXVI. Religious and Literary Activity,
XXVII. A Crisis for Jldah, .
XXVIII. A Relapse,
XXIX. Jeremiah and a Reformation,
XXX. The Shadow of Doom,
XXXI. The Carrying Away to Babylon,
XXXII. The Captivity and Deliverance,
XXXIII. The Return and Restoration,
XXXIV. Making an Ecclesiastical Capital

CONTENTS

XXXV. Last of the Prophets,
XXXVI. Literary Depression,
XXXVII. The Alexandrian Version,
XXXVIII. A New Agony and its Result,

PAGE
. 203
. 207
. 210
. 215

BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
I. The Collection as a Whole, . . . 225
II. Genesis, . . . . 229
III. The Books Containing the Law, . 239
IV. Episodes and Fragments. Joshua, . . 251
V. Judges, Ruth,  261
VI. The Book of Samuel, . . . .268
VII. The Book of Kings,  272
VIII. The Book of Chronicles, . . . 280
IX. Ezra, Nehemiah, . ... 287
X. The Earlier Prophets, .... 292
XI. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, . . 304
XII. Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, . . . 312
XIII. The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, . 317

CONTENTS

XIV. Habakkuk, Anonymous Chapters ; Lamen
tations, . . ... 326
XV. The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, . . 330
XVI. Haggai, Zechaeiah, Malachi, . . . 337
XVII. Esther, ... ... 342
XVIII. The Book of Job,  346
XIX. The Psalms, . . . . 353
XX. The Proverbs, . . .... 361
XXI. The Song of Songs, . ... 366
XXII. Jonah,  375
XXIII. The Book of Daniel, ..... 378
XXIV. Ecclesiastes  386

BACKGROUND OF THE JEWISH
SCRIPTURES

I
THE BIETH OF HEBEEW LITEEATUEE
When, some nine hundred years before the
Christian Era and five centuries after the time
of Moses, the Hebrew writers first attempted to
make a record of the origin and early experience
of their race, the " peculiar people " were already
established in the land of Palestine, and formed
the two independent kingdoms of Israel (or
Ephraim) and Judah. The land had long been di
vided into several districts known by tribal names,
the most prominent of which were Ephraim and
Judah, from which the common designations of
the two kingdoms were taken. Between these
two powerful tribes was the small but aggressive
community known as Benjamin. To the north
were several sections, with no clearly defined
boundaries, but with separate names, and these
were loosely attached to the Northern Kingdom.
There were traditions of a separate tribe, named
Simeon, to the south of Judah, but it had disap
peared, being absorbed in the country surround
ing it. There were possessions along the east

4 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
side of the Jordan belonging to the two king
doms. According to tradition, this was the first
land permanently occupied by the Israelites, and
had been left in possession of the two tribes of
Eeuben and Gad and part of the tribe of Manas
seh, when the country of the Canaanites was in
vaded and wrested from them.
The tribal differences between Ephraim and
Judah were strongly marked, and were doubtless
due to separate lines of descent extending far
back into immemorial time. Manasseh was closely
related to Ephraim, and therefore clearly dis
tinguished from Judah. The other designations
were mostly territorial, rather than ethnical, and
there were no distinct tribal peculiarities more
than were to be accounted for by common sur
roundings and modes of life for a few generations.
There were two so-called tribes, which were really
only classes. Both the name and the character
istics of Benjamin indicated that the country
about Gibeah had been occupied by a band of
warriors and their descendants, having no distinct
family origin, while the Levites were a class of
wandering priests, or ministers at oracles and al
tars, who went from place to place and depended
upon others for subsistence.
There had long been a number of " sacred
places" within the limits of the two kin"-doms

THE BIRTH OF HEBREW LITERATURE 5
marked by altars or stone pillars, or by mounds of
loose stones, about which traditions had gathered
for ages. The chief of these in the Northern
Kingdom were Bethel and Shechem, and, as a sort
of religious appurtenance of the latter, Shiloh.
There was also an ancient rallying-place at Miz
pah (the watch-tower) — near the border. In the
Southern Kingdom the oldest traditions were as
sociated with Hebron, where David first set up his
throne, and with Beer-sheba, at the southern lim
it of the land. There was a Gilgal, or ancient
mound, not far from the Jordan, connected with
memories of the first great camping-place at the
time of the invasion and conquest. The names of
tribes and of places were not distinguishable from
those of persons and families, and many of them
had significations suggesting deeds and events, or
characteristics, which had doubtless been associ
ated with their origin in a manner long since for
gotten. On the west of the two kingdoms, and between
them and the Mediterranean coast, were the Phoe
nicians and Philistines. The former were of Se
mitic origin like the Israelites, but were industri
ally and commercially more advanced, and with
them friendly relations had generally been main
tained. The Philistines, however, were wholly
alien to the Semitic blood, and were probably of

6 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Pelasgian origin, like the Greeks. They were al
ways hostile to Israel. Syria, on the northeast,
was a kindred nation, and there were traditions of
ancient amity with that country. Moab and Edom,
to the south and southeast, were also related to
the Hebrew tribes, but there was an ever-recurring
feeling of enmity toward them, which told of old
feuds and hostile encounters when the relationship
was closer and nearer to the common origin.
The material of the writers of the primitive an
nals of Israel, who wrought in the days of Jehu at
Samaria and of Joash at Jerusalem, had come down
to them through oral tradition, and had accumulated
in the form of tales and legends, and such records
as were embodied in names and in visible memori
als. The most recent of these, and those most clear
ly related to facts, pertained to the long struggle for
the possession of the land, the invasion from across
the Jordan, the contests with the natives and with
predatory bands on the borders, and the gradual
coalition of the tribes, for purposes of defence, into
a single kingdom, and then the division of that
kingdom on the distinct line of cleavage between
Ephraim and Judah, which ran far back toward
their origin. Beyond that tumultuous period was
a dimmer memory of the sojourn on the east of
the Jordan and the conflicts that preceded it, and
then the vague mists of far-off tradition. Through

THE BIRTH OF HEBREW LITERATURE 7
these had come stories of the primitive days when
the forefathers of Israel and Judah had wandered
in tribes and clans, or sojourned in nomadic fami
lies about the confines of the old empires of the
east and south. They told of famine that drove
these ancestral groups over the boundaries of
Egypt, of a period of bondage and oppression
there, and of a great deliverance that brought the
people back through perilous adventures and ter
rible hardships in the wilderness of Pharan. All
this was shadowy and had come down in tales
transmitted from father to son, taking new form
and color and growing in impressiveness from
generation to generation.
At the time when the tribes of Israel first es
tablished themselves in the land of Canaan, some
thirteen or fourteen centuries before the Christian
era, they had no written language. There is no
trace of inscription or written record among them
for at least three hundred years after the occupa
tion of that country. The oldest fragments of the
documents used by the first writers whose produc
tions have survived, embedded like primitive or
metamorphic rocks in strata of later origin, date
not less than five hundred years after the escape
from Egypt, and yet another century or more
passed before the two compilations were made in
which these fragments appear, and which were at

8 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
a still later time imperfectly fused into one. Even
this one was subsequently modified and overlaid
with new material.
In trying to discern through these writings,
with the aid of such light as may be derived from
other sources, an outline of the early history of
the people the product of whose life for a thousand
years is embalmed in the Old Testament, we must
place ourselves at the point of view of the writers,
as nearly as we can ; consider the quality of the
material they had to use, and pay a proper regard
to the mental characteristics of their race, and to
the motives and purposes by which they were ani
mated. We have also to make allowance for the
language and modes of expression peculiar to a
race radically different from that to which we owe
our own descent.

II
THE INFANCY OF ISEAEL
Gazing through such vistas as are open to us
into the mists of far-off antiquity, at " the dawn
of history," we dimly discern the Semitic race
emerging from prehistoric darkness, amid the
shifting gleams and shadows of the ancient world
of Egypt and Babylonia, the epitaphs of whose
buried civilization have been made imperfectly
legible. Deciphered hieroglyphs of pyramids and
tombs tell of long dynasties and great exploits in
the region of the Nile ages before Israel was born,
and exhumed and broken gravestones of Babylon
and Nineveh, with their wedge-shaped inscriptions,
reveal glimpses of the grandeur of dead empires
on the Tigris and Euphrates. Here were heroes
and warriors, kings and priests, palaces and tem
ples, walls and towers, science and learning, indus
trial, political, and religious institutions, long be
fore the nomadic tribes of Arabia and the plains
of the Jordan wander into the light. There may
have been a still older antiquity in China and In
dia, but that was far beyond their horizon.

10 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
The fertile valley of the Nile and the varied
region between the rivers — Mesopotamia — were
naturally fitted to stimulate an early development
of human activities. The uplands of the two
great streams of Western Asia became the em
pire of Assyria ; the richer lowlands and the plains
about the confluence of the rivers were the seat
of the earlier and later grandeur of Babylonia.
Sometimes one of these kindred nations bore sway
over the other, sometimes they were independent
rivals, and again they were virtually blended into
one. More than once they were brought into sub
jection to an alien power. The Chaldeans, migra
ting originally from the region of the Persian Gulf,
held sway at more than one period about the
great rivers. They had traditions of long ante
diluvian dynasties in Babylon, and far up on the
eastern border of Assyria were the remains of an
ancient capital known as Ur-Chasclim, or Ur of
the Chaldees. The antique science and learning,
and much of the political power, of the Mesopo-
tamian empire were attributed to the Chaldeans.
The gloomy grandeur of Egypt was at its height,
and the barbaric splendor of Babylon was already
old, when we get our first view of the Semitic
tribes wandering about their borders, and roving
with flocks and herds over the intervening stretches
of desert and oasis. There is reason to believe

THE INFANCY OF ISRAEL 11
that Arabia and the contiguous lands were then
much less arid than they have been in modern
times, and that the supply of water was subject to
extremes of scarcity and abundance. The move
ments of the nomadic tribes were determined
chiefly by the vicissitudes of dearth and plenty in
pasturage, and these naturally brought them into
frequent contact with each other and with the set
tled communities along the rivers and near the sea-
coasts. In that pastoral life the ancient Hebrew
clans, under their patriarchal chiefs, appear to
have formed conceptions and developed sentiments
that leavened their race for all time, and an ir
resistible tendency to revert to the ideals of those
days explains much in their history. They con
ceived a keen and lasting aversion for the cruel
and vicious practices that prevailed in the civilized
societies into which they obtained occasional
glimpses, and the evidences of material pride and
power filled them with a horror from which they
never fully recovered.
Many of the traditions gathered in those early
days were never lost. During sojourns upon the
borders of the plains overlooked by the towers and
battlements of Babylon the huge temple of Bel
at Borsippa produced an impression that could
not be forgotten. In wanderings far up the east
ern bank of the Tigris fables of Nimrod and the

12 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
ancient rulers of Nineveh were gathered up, and
memories were cherished of the land of Ur of the
Chaldees. More vivid were recollections of the
western borders of Assyria, where a kindred peo
ple dwelt in the region of Paddan-aram, and there
seems to have been a tradition of some ancient
partition which established the boundary between
Syria and the land of Israel in after times. There
is reason to suppose also that the wandering clans
came into unfriendly contact with the tribes of
Canaan, were touched by the influences of Phoe
nicia, and felt the hostile spirit of the Philistines.
But their more lasting sojourns were in the
south. In the Dead Sea region the weird scenes,
where the sinking waters of that strange inland
lake had left grotesque shapes of salt and as
phalt, where beds of bitumen had at some im
memorial time been aflame, and where slime-pits
suggested the engulfing of armies, furnished a
background for legends of warring kings and the
destruction of cities in a time already old. In
seasons of drought there was a lingering about the
wells of Beer-sheba or a venturing into the fertile
parts by " the river of Egypt," while actual famine
may have driven a chief now and then into the
very heart of the realm of the Pharaohs.
Traditions of these nomadic days were treas
ured in the memory and transmitted from gener-

THE INFANCY OF ISRAEL 13
ation to generation until they were finally woven
with later material and colored with later concep
tions, to form the wonderful texture of a record
which has become sanctified in the eyes of the best
part of the human race. It may have been during
this long period of its wandering infancy that the
Hebrew people stored in their tenacious memory
the Chaldean legends of the origin of the world,
the creation of man, the Garden of the Tigris and
Euphrates, which was the cradle of mankind, the
destruction of all living things by a flood of waters,
and of the surviving family that repeopled the
earth. Their reckoning of time, and even the con
secration of one day in seven to rest, which long
after became a matter of such scrupulous obser
vance, they derived from the ancient empire which
they had regarded with so much awe and so much
aversion, and out of the tale of Ur-Chasdim they
created their own ancestor.

Ill
LEGEND AEY ANCESTOES
Back of the august figure of Abraham there was
a Chaldean legend of King Orham, under whose
benignant sway animals were substituted for human
beings in expiatory and placatory sacrifices to the
dreaded deities. Some features of that legend ap
pear in the Jewish traditions, but other branches
of the Semitic family, as well as the Hebrews,
claimed Abraham as their father. The oldest
Jewish traditions regarding the origin of the He
brew people were associated with the northern
sojourn in Paddan-aram and a migration thither
from the East. When these came to be embodied
in the form of personal narratives, Abraham was
represented as having traversed the land that was
to become the heritage of his descendants, and as
having consecrated, by building altars, the places
still held sacred. The relationship of the various
branches of the Semitic family was portrayed in a
half-mythical way. Lot was an ancient name of
the people and the region about the lower Jordan
and the Dead Sea, and Lot was represented as

LEGENDARY ANCESTORS 15
the son of Abraham's brother Haran, which was
really the name of a place in what became the
land of Syria. The ancestor of Israel divided
the country with his nephew, who became the
progenitor of Moab and Ammon. Abraham was
allowed to be the ancestor of Arabia, or of the
people known as Ishmaelites and Hagrites, but
only through the offspring of an Egyptian bond
woman, while the Midianites came from a second
marriage in his extreme old age. A closer re
lationship was permitted to Edom. The ethnic
story even gave to Edom an original precedence,
which was superseded by the superior craft of
Israel. Apart from this incident of one branch of
the family supplanting another, the higher claim
of Israel to the fatherhood of Abraham came from
being the offspring of the wife of his youth, who
was barren until advanced in years.
All this is a legendary or mythical account of
the origin of tribes and people ; but the legend of
Abraham as the forefather of the Hebrew people
seems to connect with an actual chieftain, of the
time of ancient wars between " confederated "
kings of the plains and those of the hill country.
This head of what was apparently a powerful tribe
took a victorious part in one of these wars and re
ceived the homage of the ancient Jebusite king of
Salem, who is also designated as " Priest of God

16 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Most High." In this picture we get a passing,
but vivid glimpse of an antiquity far back of the
record in which it is preserved.
The oldest of the actual tribal traditions at
tached to the name Isaac, or Isaak-el, the designa
tion of an ancient clan, implying divine favor, or
the " smile of God," but these were confined to
the district of Beer-sheba and furnished its chief
claim to sanctity. These Isaac traditions became
mixed with the Abraham legend, as appears from
the two versions of the story of Abimelech, king
of Gerar, and of the naming of the wells of Beer
sheba. But as tradition became clearer the an
cestors of the people of Palestine appeared un
der the names of Jacob and Joseph, shortened
from tribal designations of Jacob-el and Joseph-el.
These were the source of the broad difference that
divided the nation irreconcilably into two, but the
former came to be regarded as the older branch of
Israel, and the latter as its ambitious offspring.
The name Joseph, an " addition," seems to imply
an alliance of tribes which did not have a known
common origin. Out of the fables to which these
names and traditions gave rise no historic facts
can be elicited but only historic conjectures.

rv
SEEYITUDE IN EGYPT
The first faint light of actual history falls upon
the children of Israel as they flee from a galling
servitude within the borders of Egypt. It is a
plausible conjecture that the Josephites were the
first to migrate to the fertile regions toward the
Nile valley — probably driven thither by famine,
but possibly betrayed into captivity, as the later
legend implies — and that the union with the other
branch of the Hebrew family came afterward. It
may also be true, as the legend implies, that they
won high favor in Egj'pt and were intrusted with
some share of power by the Pharaohs. They were
not the first Semitic immigrants in that region,
and it was from a section of the Hittites, settled
there long before, that the famous Hyksos, or
" Shepherd Kings," sprang. At all events it seems
to have been after the Josephites had risen to
favor and power in Egypt that the clan of Jacob
sought relief in that country from an unusually
severe and prolonged famine.
They were permitted to establish themselves in

18 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the land of Goshen, in the pastoral pursuits to which
they were accustomed, and which were the scorn
of the civilized Egyptians. For some time they
were allowed to dwell there in peace and compara
tive plenty, but after the conquests and triumphs of
Thothmes and Ehameses IL, the power and pride
of the old dynasties were restored. Ehameses set
about the construction of great storehouses and
fortified places near the border of his empire, in
the direction of the Isthmus, and for these he had
occasion for a vast quantity of bricks, or blocks of
clay mingled with vegetable fibre and hardened in
the sun, and for the forced labor by which the
government was wont to execute its public works.
He " knew not Joseph " and had no sympathy for
Israel, and accordingly proceeded to utilize the
alien population within his borders upon the great
structures which he had undertaken. Out of this
policy came the grinding "oppression" which the
proud Israelites remembered so long and so vivid
ly, and resented with such an undying hatred of
Egypt. So long as the reign of the great Eham
eses lasted there was no hope of escape, but after
him came intestine strife and trouble in the land
of the Pharaohs, and a weakening of their power.
A natural result, in the course of time, was a re
volt of the subject races against the brutal task
masters placed over them.

SER VITUDE IN EG YPT 19
Tradition unquestionably exaggerated greatly
the number of the Hebrews in Egypt, the length
of their stay, and the perils of their escape. It is
characteristic, not only of the traditions but of the
records of early ages, to exaggerate numbers, dis
tances, and periods of time, and to magnify events
and deeds. Asiatic races are peculiarly addicted
to extravagant expression, and even in modern
times they are not scrupulously exact in statement.
It is not remarkable that after the lapse of cen
turies, during which the only means of transmit
ting knowledge of the past was by oral tradition,
and the only record was the memory of successive
generations, the popular mind became filled with
marvels associated with the deliverance from Egyp
tian bondage, and the escape through the Bed Sea
and the gloomy wilderness of Mount Sinai, or that
the first literature of the people was largely made
up of strange tales and legends connected with
that critical experience.

THE GEEAT DELIVEEANCE
Many times in the course of human history
there has been a remarkable concurrence of favor
ing circumstances and events to produce results
of great moment. One of the most striking of
these seems to have attended the escape of the
Israelites from the oppression under which they
had fallen in Egypt. So far as can bs determined
by traces of historical evidence, their sojourn
there did not exceed three generations, or about a
hundred years, and there is no likelihood that
their numbers had attained more than a few thou
sands. They had become mingled more or less
with other alien bondmen and with low class
Egyptians, who joined in their revolt. When the
spirit of insurrection broke out the government
had fallen into extreme weakness and perplexity.
It was beset with foreign perils and domestic dis
orders, and just at that time came a series of
troubles, or " plagues," to which the peculiar con
ditions of the land of the Nile made it subject
from time to time. At this juncture also a leader

THE GREAT DELIVERANCE 21
arose exactly fitted by character, training, and ex
perience for the task of delivering the oppressed
people. Doubtless the name Moses stands for a real
person, though it became the centre of a legend
which was woven about it in a more and more
complicated texture for ages. The name itself
was Egyptian, and its possessor may have shared
the blood and spirit of both the subject and the
ruling race, with the Israelite mother strong in
his nature, or he may have been adopted and
trained in the royal family, as the primitive legend
says, and received the name from them. He was
probably versed in the learning and mysteries of
Egypt, and he may have held a place in the gov
erning class, with some official relation toward
those held in bondage. Nor is there anything
incredible in the story of his affinity with a priest
of Midian, or in that of his murder of an Egyptian
who had maltreated a Hebrew, a deed which be
came a determining cause in his subsequent career.
Amid the mists of tradition and the clouds of
conjecture formed out of them, one clear fact
stands out. A specially qualified leader, who was
always known as Moses, arose to take advantage
of an exceptional situation and to extricate the
children of Israel from their galling servitude.
He succeeded in conducting them to the other

22 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
side of the Bed Sea, where they were safe from
pursuit, and in afterward leading them through
the wilderness that intervened between the Sea
and the region below the valley of the Jordan,
memories of which may still have lingered among
the patriarchs of the ancient tribe.
The Eed Sea at that time extended farther
north than at present, in a series of shallows and
lagoons, and in certain states of wind and tide
this projecting arm could be safely crossed on the
uncovered sands. A lulling or shifting of the
wind and a turning of the tide would bring back
the waters in a surging tumult. Advantage was
taken of this situation in a manner that gave rise
to one of the most thrilling episodes in the story
of the exodus. One of those touches in the story
which incidentally reveal the moral standard of
the time, not discountenanced at the later day
when the story was written, is the account of the
plundering of the Egyptians, not boldly but by
craft, on the eve of the flight. It was even at
tributed to divine command.
The course which brought the people into the
forbidding region about Mount Sinai was doubt
less followed on account of a fear of pursuit and
a desire to avoid encountering hostile bands or
striking the regular caravan routes. The strip of
desert upon which they first entered on turning

THE GREAT DELIVERANCE 23
southward must have been less barren than it is
now, for it is known to have been occupied for
a long time by a scattered or wandering popula
tion. But the exiles doubtless suffered there from
hunger and thirst, notwithstanding the spoils and
supplies that they were able to take with them.
It is easy to conjecture incidents of fact which
became the source of miraculous tales in the
record made up in after ages, but it is impossible
to ascertain anything as absolute fact in that
record. The effort to mitigate the brackishness
of water by casting into it branches of certain
trees is not unknown in other episodes of human
experience. An ancient fragment of popular song,
preserved in the Book of Numbers, tells of the
discovery of a spring which the princes of the
people opened by digging in the sand with their
staves, and this was doubtless the origin of the
legend of smiting the rock. Coveys of quail were
not uncommon in this wilderness, and there was
an edible gum which exuded from certain trees,
known to the Arabs as Mann-es-Sema, or " Gift
of God." With such meagre resources the people
were able to eke out their subsistence at this try
ing time.
In migrating in semi-tropical desert lands it has
always been the custom to rest in camp in the
daytime, and to linger for days together where

24 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
verdure and water are found, and to make marches
from point to point by night. The column of
smoke rising in the serene atmosphere from the
central camp, and the torches carried on long poles
at the head of the marching column, doubtless
gave rise to the legend of the pillar of cloud by
day and the pillar of fire by night. The con
tinual altar fires during a period of halt became
a cloud enveloping the ark.
Mount Sinai, standing in gloomy solitude in the
depths of the wilderness, was the reputed abode
of a terrible deity, and a sojourn in its neighbor
hood was calculated to produce a deep and last
ing impression. It presented a fitting scene for
a halt, out of the reach of present danger, where
the fleeing remnant of the old Hebrew tribes,
cut off from all the world, might consider its
future destiny. The three months occupied in
the flight from Egypt had been full of privation
and hardship. Once a hostile band of Amalekites
had been encountered, and blood had been shed
in actual conflict. This " battle " at Eephidim
was the first in the " wars "celebrated in the prim
itive literature of the Hebrews and was perhaps
the origin of the national hatred of Amalek. It
began a new chapter in the history of the race.

VI
EAELY CONCEPTIONS OF DEITY
These Semitic wanderers were no more free
than other primitive peoples from the characteris
tics belonging to the infancy of mankind. They
were credulous, superstitious, and susceptible to
fears of the unseen, and were ready to attribute
the visible and audible phenomena of nature to
some awful power above or about them, upon
whose favor life depended. Conceptions of divin
ity have always been determined by the character
of humanity, and no moral standard for which
divine sanction was claimed has ever been higher
than the moral altitude of the best men of the
time. A continuous line of tradition through
forty centuries seems to indicate that those early
nomads upon the outskirts of Mesopotamia had
tended strongly toward a sublime monotheism.
There are signs of a primitive belief in a myste
rious set of beings called Elohs, or Elohim, repre
senting the powers of Nature, after the manner of
the divinities of polytheistic races, but these were
gathered into a single personification, and Elohim

20 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
became the designation for one all-pervading
Deity. The idea of the separate Eloh persisted for a
long time with some modification, and traces of it
appear in stories of the messengers who visited
Abram at Mamre and abode with Lot in Sodom, in
the Beni-Elohim, or Sons of God, who in com
merce with the daughters of men begat giants, and
in the angels of Jacob's dream, ascending and
descending on the heights of Luz. In the nomadic
days there may have been something of the prim
itive forms of worship, by means of offerings and
sacrifices, to placate the deity or to win his favor,
but the artificial system into which it was devel
oped did not belong to this age. The patriarchal
chief was the only priest ; the Nabi, or prophet,
the Cohen, or priest, and the Levi, or minister of
worship, were alike unknown. In the simple life in
tents and under the open sky the germs of a lofty
conception of family life and of social relations
had started into being, and were destined to retain
their vitality through all the subsequent trials and
changes till the mission of the Hebrew race was
fulfilled. But that hundred years on the verge of Egyp
tian influence had produced radical and enduring-
effects. It had not wholly obliterated the tradi
tions of Babylonia, of Ur-Chasdim, and Paddan-

EARLY CONCEPTIONS OF1 DEITY 27
aram, or the vague memories of the wanderings
below the Jordan valley to Beer-sheba. A hazy
conception of the mighty Elohim remained, but
the land of Goshen was within the circle of the
influence of Memphis and Heliopolis. Egypt was
already old in religion and hi the forms and appli
ances of worship, and the sojourners within her
borders did not escape the influence of the cult of
Isis and Osiris. They became familiar with ma
terial representations of Deity and the elaborate
paraphernalia and ceremonial of worship in the
land of the Pharaohs, and did not remain igno
rant of the moral codes and spiritual speculations
which were the product of a systematic priesthood.
The ancient Hebrews were never endowed with
originality, ingenuity, or artistic sense regarding
the externals of life. They borrowed then- mate
rials and their forms from others, and it was from
Egypt that they derived most that related to the
outward forms and modes of religion. There they
got the idea of an ordered priesthood, of vest
ments, musical accompaniments and dances, as
appurtenances of sacrifice and worship. The port
able shrine, so long known as the Ark of the Cov
enant, was an Egyptian appliance in its origin, as
was the table of shewbread ; and the cherubim as a
feature of sacred decoration were a modification of
the sphinx. The long sojourn within the influence

28 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of old Egypt begat the propensity to idolatrous
worship, which proved so hard to resist, and to
divination and the consulting of oracles. The
Ephod and the mysterious device of the Urim and
Thummim were borrowed from the sorcerers of the
Nile. But the traditions of the patriarchal age and
the effects of Egyptian bondage were alike deeply
sundered by some mighty and mysterious influence
in that memorable passage through the wilderness.
It wrought profoundly upon the race as it struggled
from servitude to conquest. It may fairly be said
that the most conspicuous result of that experience,
that gestation of overwrought emotions, that fer
ment of hopes and fears, and the persistent work
ing of an indomitable genius upon the plastic
material of a homeless people, was the production
of the national " God of Israel."
Generally among primitive people the inacces
sible tops of lonely mountain peaks were imagined
to be the abode of awful deities. When clouds
and darkness gathered there, they sent forth the
lightnings and uttered their voices in thunder. On
invisible chariots they rolled through the skies,
carrying terror to the puny dwellers of the earth.
Mount Sinai in its rocky grandeur and desolate
surroundings, subject to the violent caprices of a
changeful climate, was peculiarly adapted to be the

EARLY CONCEPTIONS OF DEITY 29
abode of the awful majesty of the heavens. What
happened there when the harassed exiles gathered
in awe at the foot of the mountain, and their leader
disappeared in its solitudes, no man can know.
What in after ages was believed to have happened
there has been recorded in the most enduring
writing that has come from the hand of man. We
do know that from that tremendous agony of Sinai
and the wilderness, Israel came forth with Jehovah
as its recognized God and the ruler of its destinies.
The first Hebrew writing made no use of vowels,
and the four characters that have been erroneously
rendered in English as " Jehovah " came to be re
garded as unpronounceable, or as an "unspeak
able" name. The proper form is Jahwe or Yah-
veh, and the name was of Assyrian origin, the fem
inine equivalent, Hawwa, being the original of Eve,
the " mother of life." Jahwe seems to have denoted
the mysterious source of natural phenomena, and
its application must have made a deep impression
upon the Semitic mind during the sojourns on the
borders of Assyria, or it would not have been car
ried so long in memory, to be finally adopted as
the appellation of the God of the returning Israel
ites.

VII
THE GOD OF ISEAEL
Only a germ of the conception which was de
veloped into the great Jehovah of Israel could
have been planted in the minds of the people dur
ing this brief but memorable halt in the vale by
Mount Siuai. But there were opportunities for
fostering it during the subsequent wandering
through the wilderness, which occupied several
months, though but a fraction of the period of
forty years which later tradition assigned to it.
No doubt there were long stops where forage and
water were found, and privations and distress in
the barren wastes that intervened. It was in
evitable that in these trials discontent and turbu
lence should break out, and that the people should
murmur against their leaders, and look back with
longing to the comparative comfort of the bondage
from which they had been taken. On such occa
sions their leaders, and especially the one great
leader upon whom they mainly relied, must have
been forced to every device that could work upon
the hopes and fears of a superstitious multitude, to

THE GOD OF ISRAEL 31
maintain authority and prevent irretrievable dis
aster. Then could they invoke the terrible God
who had revealed himself in the thunders of the
mountain -top and whose commands they had
sought and obtained in its dark recesses, to bring
the murmurers into subjection. Doubtless every
calamitous incident of a perilous journey was
turned to account in enforcing discipline and be
came the source of some tale of miraculous inter
position. It is almost certain that epidemics
broke out in camps where long stays were made
without sanitary safeguards ; there may have been
an encounter with venomous serpents, a destruc
tive fire in the camp, a stroke of lightning, or a
shock of earthquake. The legends of divine wrath
and terrible punishment for disobedience which
appear in the record of after times, doubtless orig
inated with such incidents, and it is probable that
Moses and the " princes " and " nobles " of the
people made use of them to the utmost in main
taining their authority.
But more than this was needed. The people
must be inspired with hope as well as restrained
by fear. Until they had passed through the first
stretch of wilderness to the region of Kadesh, or
Ezion-Geber, there was probably little thought of
anything but escape from the terrors they were
leaving behind. But here they must have come

32 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
upon traces of the migrations of their ancestors,
which under the spur of famine had finally car
ried them over the borders of Egypt. We cannot
tell from the record, written long after the event
and in the light of subsequent knowledge and ex
perience, what memories revived or what associa
tions were recalled, connected with wanderings
and sojourns in the land of the Jordan. The
writers of that record were intent, not only upon
accounting for the origin and relating the early
experience of their race, but upon explaining and
justifying the conquest of the land of which their
race had become possessed, and the traditions
which they made use of had accumulated in the
ages between Moses and Jeroboam.
When the refugees from Egyptian bondage
found themselves upon the borders of the land
sanctified to them in some measure at least by
memories of their forefathers, cherished through a
long and bitter exile, a return to the nomadic
state was no longer possible. They found no
place in which they could remain in peace. One
of the petty chiefs of the south had made a dis
comfiting attack upon them, and they were forced
to move on. Edom and Moab were too power
ful for them to displace, and received them in no
friendly mood. These kindred tribes, through
jealousy or fear, refused to let them pass through

THE GOD OF ISRAEL 33
their domain, thereby incurring the lasting enmity
of Israel, who was forced to make the long detour
in the wilderness in which so much was suffered.
It is evident that in their perplexing situation
these homeless people were in some way strongly
impressed with the idea that they had a right of
possession in the lands over which their fathers
had roamed, and upon which they had set up
monuments marking the places of their longer so
journs or their more notable experiences. Memo
ries of the Jordan valley, and the hills and vales
of Canaan, transmitted from father to son in the
bondsmen's tents of the land of Goshen and the
cabins of the fellaheen of Ehameses, through the
dark period of exile and servitude, doubtless pict
ured in their minds a delightful land "flowing
with milk and honey," and they were easily per
suaded that it was their own proper heritage.
They were in a mood to be convinced that the
terrible God who had been revealed to them and
had dealt so severely with them in the wilderness
had given that coveted land to their fathers and
had made a solemn covenant that it should be
possessed by their children. He it was that had
delivered them from Egyptian bondage and he
would lead them into the promised land. This
conviction afforded a powerful motive to be
wrought upon in establishing the authority of
3

34 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Jehovah over the people, and in holding them in
obedience to leaders who professed to receive
commands direct from this mighty divinity.
Out of the exigencies of that time and the time
that followed, down to the establishment of the
kingdom, was wrought the greatest of ancient
legends, that of the God of Israel, who had
brought Abraham out of the land of the Chaldees
and promised to his posterity the goodly heritage
of Canaan ; who met Jacob on the hill of Luz and
repeated the promise ; who brought his chosen
people out of the house of bondage and led them
through the Eed Sea and the desert wilderness, to
renew his covenant with the seed of Abraham.
How much of this was developed during the brief
sojourn near Mount Sinai and the trying months
that followed we cannot tell, but enough to impress
the people with their right to possess the land of
whose delights they dreamed and to nerve them
for its conquest. They were brought under dis
cipline through dread of Jehovah's wrath, and in
spired to effort by confidence in his promises, all
of which is evidence of the genius of the great
leader known as Moses.
The conception of Jehovah, formed at the time
of the long struggle from bondage to conquest,
and designed to carry that struggle to success,
represents a tribal deity not greatly different in

THE GOD OF ISRAEL 35
characteristics from the Chemosh of Moab and the
Baal of Ammon. To a rational mind, since the
profound modification wrought in our ideas by
Christianity and by modern philosophy, this con
ception seems monstrous, but it was adapted to
the character of the people in whom it was
awakened, to the stage of mental and moral
growth which they had attained, and to the exi
gencies of their situation. In fact it was the prod
uct of these factors wrought out by the genius
of their leaders. It was the conception of a being
of terrible power, fiercely jealous of other gods,
exacting complete submission and obedience as
the price of his favor, liable to outbreaks of furi
ous anger, needing to be placated by offerings
and bloody sacrifices, and by shows of humility,
but capable of loving-kindness and tender mercy
to the submissive, and sure to reward the obedi
ent. In conflicts with the subjects of other gods
he sanctioned craft and cruelty, but in later days
this conception was softened and expanded, so as
to include the sublimer attributes of the Elohim,
until Jehovah was transformed into the Lord God
of the great prophets, and the loving Father of
the still greater teacher of Galilee.
While commands of the great leader of the de
liverance, long treasured by the people as coming
direct from Jehovah, may have contained germs

36 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of the "Torah," that system of "statutes and
ordinances," and Mose3 himself in the character of
law-giver, were the product of later times. In the
primitive narratives covering the long period of
national or tribal life, before the time of the two
kingdoms, there is no trace of knowledge or ob
servance of the " law." The real Moses, versed in
the lore of Egypt, and possibly acquainted with
the language of inscriptions in Midian or Moab,
may have had command of some form of writing,
though that of the Hebrews was long after derived
from Phoenicia, but the account of the tables of
stone was first given at least four hundred years
after his time. The only other mention of them
in all the history of Israel, save in the Deuterono
mic expansion of the law, speaks of them as being
found in the ancient ark of the covenant and
placed in the first temple at Jerusalem, and that
mention was made more than four other centuries
after the alleged finding. Not the slightest refer
ence is made to this sacred souvenir as being
among the treasures of the temple when it was
finally plundered and destroyed. Ths consecrated
code known as the " Ten Words," or the Ten Com
mandments, was in fact first formulated about five
centuries after the occupation of the land of Ca
naan.

VIII
INVADING THE PEOMISED LAND
When once the purpose of taking possession of
the land along the Jordan and driving out or sub
jugating its inhabitants became fixed, a change
seems to have come over the spirit of the people,
which is clearly reflected in the earliest written
material of their story. A confident and aggres
sive quality was developed, a definite plan of in
vasion and conquest took the place of the turbulent
movements of fugitives, and something of the
character of military leadership appeared. The
most available territory lay in a narrow strip, a
hundred miles long or more, on the eastern bank
of the Jordan. It had been wrested from Moab
by warlike bands from the other side of the river,
and was divided into two petty realms under
" Sihon, king of the Amorites," and " Og, king of
Bashan." These two marauding chiefs were alien to the
pastoral people upon whom they had imposed
their rule, and doubtless maintained their power
with a handful of Amorite warriors. The Mo-

38 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
abites were willing enough to see that power dis
placed, and this first conquest of the resolute
Israelites must have been an easy one. They first
attacked the little realm of Sihon and took posses
sion of Heshbon, his capital, and afterward ex
tended their occupation northward over Bashan,
meeting with feeble resistance. The "kings "of
course were slain. This first victory gave the
weary exiles a chance to settle down at last upon
a land that would afford them subsistence and re
pose after their trials and hardships. Here they
could recruit their strength for further conquests
when the time should be ripe.
Naturally the exploits connected with the seiz
ing of the land from the Arnon to the Jabbok be
came magnified and glorified in the oral traditions
which were long after embodied in " The Book of
Jasher " and " The Wars of Jehovah." These con
tained the material most nearly authentic used in
the account that has come down to us, but they
were filled with the exaggerations and marvels
characteristic of early productions of the kind.
While only fragments of this primitive material
have been preserved without change, considerable
passages of the narrative incorporated in the
record were evidently derived from it. Though
this record represents Moses as continuing to lead
and command the " host " of Israel until it had

INVADING THE PROMISED LAND 39
gained possession of the land on the east of the
Jordan, the fragments of original material and of
primitive narrative indicate his disappearance at
the borders of Moab. In fact, as the light of
actual history begins dimly to expand, that im
posing figure fades mysteriously from our view.
But that of Joshua, though less shadowy, is not
less legendary.
This name is first mentioned in connection with
the little skirmish with the Amalekites in the wil
derness, known as the " battle " of Eephiclim, and,
in its original form of " Hoshea," means " the Con
queror." This indicates that it was a name applied,
after the event, to a legendary hero to whose lead
ership the military achievements of the conquest
of Canaan were attributed. No part of the an
cient record has less of real historical character
than that which purports to contain an account of
those exploits. There was in reality no immediate
invasion of the land to the west of the Jordan,
with a systematic division and occupation of the
territory. The picture of rapid and vigorous con
quest, under the divinely directed leadership of
Joshua, is produced by a close grouping of inci
dents scattered over a long interval of later time.
In this picture there is a striking exaggeration of
details, mingled with miraculous elements, drawn
from the crude epic material of popular songs and

40 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
legends, the outlines of which have been effaced while
the color and substance still appear here and there.
In reality the sojourn to the east of the Jordan
extended over a series of years ; how long we can
not tell. Nor was it altogether peaceful. The
jealousy of Moab revived, and it became an un
friendly neighbor. There is an account of one
bloody conflict with hostile Midianites. The
curious story of Balaam, interjected in the rec
ord, we shall have occasion to refer to hereafter.
This territory, still occupied in part by the orig
inal inhabitants, was for the most part adapted
only to a pastoral or rather meagre agricultural
life, and as the number of the people increased
the need of expansion was seriously felt. Beyond
the river was a variegated country, stretching for
a hundred miles and more along its western bank,
and having a breadth of forty to fifty miles before
the formidable barrier of the Philistines and
Phoenicians was reached. It was in the possession
of a number of related but not united tribes, none
of which was either numerous or powerful. It
was not, as a whole, a rich or a fertile land, but to
those whose memory was of a wandering life in
the desert, and who found a scanty subsistence on
the narrow plains east of the Jordan, it seemed to
flow with milk and honey and to promise abodes of
peace and plenty.

INVADING THE PROMISED LAND 41
Their situation, with hostile neighbors on their
southern border, and with a constant liability of
attack from plundering bands, had compelled the
Israelites to keep up something of a warlike spirit
and to maintain a military force. As they gained
in strength the desire to enter upon their heritage
over the river and possess it, grew more intense,
and with that desire, no doubt, their confidence
increased in their right by ancestral occupation
and divine promise. Its possession was, in fact,
not only justified to their minds, but made a duty
by the absolute command of Jehovah. They had
maintained a camp and general rallying-place,
nearly opposite Jericho, on a plain known as the
" Plain of Acacias " (Shittim). In that neighbor
hood the Jordan was a shallow stream, easily
forded except in times of freshet.
The " nations " of Canaan, as we have said,
were small tribes, mostly pastoral, scattered over
the hills and valleys of a land not much more than
a hundred miles by fifty in extent. Their " kings "
were tribal chiefs, with bands of warriors where
with to maintain their authority, and their
"cities" were little more than camps or head
quarters for these petty potentates. If the people
had been united into one nation they would not
have been very formidable, but they would prob
ably have been invincible to the designs of the

42 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
invaders. They were, however, not accustomed to
act in concert against foreign foes, and the tribes
were not always on amicable terms even with each
other. Their language differed little from that of
the Israelites, and incursions for " spying out the
land " were not attended with much difuculty or
peril, and they constantly inflamed the desire of
conquest. The watch-tower of Canaan, and its outpost of
defence on the east, was Jericho, standing on a
commanding elevation not far from the river fron
tier. With its primitive defences and its small
population it had no great power of resistance, but
it was a formidable obstacle to invaders whose
military resources were slender and whose aj>pli-
ances of warfare were of the simplest. The most
elementary ideas of strategy suggested that this
place must be utterly destroyed before a conquest
of the country beyond could be safely undertaken,
and it had to be accomplished by craft rather than
force. " The wars of Jehovah " were indeed attended
with much craft and cruelty, but the early history
of mankind is filled with struggles for the posses
sion of coveted lands, in which every resource of
deceit and strategy, and every advantage of merci
less slaughter, were employed without compunc
tion. The early Israelites, when brought into

INVADING THE PROMISED LAND 43
conflict with their enemies, did not prove deficient
in the violent qualities of primitive human nature,
but they developed a degree of ingenuity and
cunning, and a capacity for stratagem with which
their feeble foemen were unable to cope. The
conviction that the mighty Jehovah had given this
land to their fathers and confirmed it to them as
their rightful heritage, that he had commanded
them to take possession of it and would direct and
sustain their efforts, sanctified to their minds, or
at least to the minds of those who told their story
after the task was done, the exceedingly human
methods by which it had to be accomplished.
Deceit, perfidy, treachery, and barbarous atroci
ties were attributed to divine command. Eeverses
were always due to the displeasure of Jehovah,
whose will had been misunderstood or disregarded,
and victories gained by ruthless slaughter were
credited to his beneficent favor. The basest and
most cruel acts were in some cases said to have
been commanded by the Deity, who even inter
vened with miraculous aid to give them effect.
Apparently the supernatural element was infused
into this bloody story mainly by the devout com
pilers of a much later time, and it may be that
those who took part in the scenes of carnage, and
those who first celebrated them in song and legend,
felt no occasion for the gloss of sanctity.

IX
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN
The plots and stratagems by which the walled
town of Jericho was seized and destroyed, with a
relentless slaughter of the inhabitants, is so com
pletely veiled in the legendary record that we can
form no definite idea of them, except that they
were masked by an awe-inspiring demonstration
of priests and soldiers and a distracting din.
Whatever the means, that essential preliminary of
the conquest was achieved, and the invading forces
left no danger of attack from behind. Then a base
of operations was established at an antique crom
lech, or gilgal, not far from the fords of the river,
and a raid was made upon the nearest populous
town. It was mercilessly wiped out and its desolate
site became known simply as " Ai," the " Euins."
This struck terror into the little communities about
Gibeon, which was certain to be the next point of
attack. The remnant of the Hivites who dwelt
thereabouts were a feeble folk, and, according to
the quaint story, they resorted to a trick that
seems rather puerile, for making peace with the

THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN 45
invaders and saving themselves, at the risk of ex
citing the resentment of the more powerful Amo
rites and Jebusites beyond. A " king " who was
doubtless a successor of the antique Melchisedek,
of whom a passing glimpse is given in the legend
of Abraham, managed a concerted effort to pun
ish the " Gibeonites," and to resist the advancing
" host " of Israel.
The combined armies of the five confederated
" kings " could hardly have been a formidable
power, their warlike equipment was of a primitive
sort, and the effort at concerted military strategy
proved ineffectual. The determined front and en
ergetic action of the Israelites, inspired by confi
dence that an invincible Deity was directing their
movements, resulted in a complete rout of the en
emy, who were put to merciless slaughter. The
presumptuous " kings " suffered the hideous fate
reserved for those who ventured to fight against
the terrible Jehovah. The victory of Gibeon and
the battle in the vale of Ajalon, small as the scale
of warfare must have been, appear in the ancient
legends as such prodigies of valor and carnage
that the very sun and moon stood aghast at the
spectacle. The spirit in which these legends were
afterward compiled is finely illustrated in the
way this striking but not unfamiliar hyperbole
was transformed into a matter-of-fact statement,

46 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
The details of the gradual conquest of Canaan
are not sufficiently known, and the record, long
after made up, is not sufficiently historical to jus
tify any attempt to state more than general results.
The process of subjugation occupied not less than
two centuries, and was not accomplished by sys
tematic or successive efforts under any one leader.
Sometimes one tribe or band, and sometimes an
other, made a conquest of coveted territory, and
often more than one joined in a victorious enter
prise for a new possession for some branch of the
family of Israel not yet adequately provided for.
By degrees most of the country was brought into
subjection, but it was long before complete ascen
dency was established throughout the domain af
terward known as Palestine. The final account
of a division of the land and the allotment of de
fined areas to different tribes was quite artificial.
The pastoral clans of Eeuben and Gad, and
most of the Machirite branch of Manasseh, re
mained on the other side of the Jordan, though
they appear to have aided their brethren in the
original invasion. The powerful tribe of Judah
and the warlike band known as Benjamin were the
first to establish themselves in the heart of the
" promised land." The former set up its capital
at Hebron and left the old Jebusite stronghold
of Mount Sion unsubdued, while Benjamin was

THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN 4T
settled a little to the north about Gibeah. These
assisted the people who became traditionally
known as the tribe of Simeon in taking possession
of territory in the south, in the region of Beer
sheba ; but these never had any distinct boun
daries or any marked tribal characteristics, and
they gradually disappeared. What became known
as the tribe of Dan was established on the borders
of Philistia, where it was so harried that it ulti
mately migrated to the north.
Ephraim, the powerful and jealous rival of
Judah, conquered for itself, through a long series
of bloody conflicts, a large area just north of the
domain of Judah and Benjamin, in some respects
the most attractive and promising part of the
whole country. With it was associated a portion
of the related tribe of Manasseh. This section of
Israel always laid claim to superiority of character
and descent, and sustained the claim with the fas
cinating story of its great progenitor, Joseph,
through whom the whole Hebrew race had been
saved in Egypt, and whose sacred relics were said
to have been buried at Shechem. The people who
spread themselves over the extreme north had no
distinct tribal peculiarities, and the names by
which they came to be known were derived from
characteristics of their situation or associations
connected with the land.

48 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Before the establishment of the first kingdom
there was no union or effective federation of tribes,
nor, excepting in the difference, amounting almost
to antipathy, between Judah and Ephraim, were
there any distinct lines of division or well-defined
limits of possession and authority. Notwithstand
ing the menaces and commands of extermination,
and the stories of limitless slaughter, transmitted
by tradition to later times, the Canaanites were
not driven out, nor was any large proportion of
them destroyed. In places they retained indepen
dent communities of their own and maintained
friendly relations with the victors. In others they
were reduced to a servile condition, while in many
parts they were practically absorbed with the new
population. But in general, though the con
querors and conquered were of a common stock,
and akin in language and in racial tendencies,
there was no actual blending. The stronger strain
became dominant and maintained its distinctive
qualities, and it was the chief aim of the religious
effort of Israel, through the teachings of priest
and prophet, and through law and worship, to pre
serve the solidarity of " God's chosen people."
In the absence of anything that can be called
statistics of those times it is not easy to form an
approximate estimate of the number of the in
vading or the subjugated people, nor for many

THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN 49
centuries after can such an estimate be fairly
made of the population of the country, or of any
city, or of the size of armies or the forces en
gaged in recorded battles. The " host " that made
its way through the deserts, cautiously avoiding
encounters with Edom or Moab, could not have
been numerous. The strip of territory long oc
cupied on the east of the Jordan could only sus
tain a scattered pastoral population of no con
siderable number. The extent of the land lying
between the Jordan and the coast countries, the
character of its surface, and the conditions of life
among the Canaanite tribes, make it impossible to
suppose that the so-called " nations '' had much
power of resistance, either in numbers or re
sources. The Israelites were a more vigorous and prolific
people, and once rooted in the country they out
grew and overgrew the native population, though
they did not displace it or wholly escape its mod
ifying influence. The natural resources of the
land and the known conditions of industry afford
no ground for supposing that the country ever
became populous or powerful, or that any of its
cities ever had much wealth or defensive strength.
The warlike spirit developed during the invasion
and conquest speedily subsided, but was spas
modically aroused from time to time by some try-

50 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
ing exigency. The Hebrews were not a concilia
tory people, and were apt to be on unfriendly
terms with their neighbors, whom they either
hated or regarded with contempt. Occasionally
the subjugated natives showed a spirit of revolt,
and elements of internal discord among the tribes
were not lacking, while the jealousy between Ju
dah and Ephraim was easily stirred. The old
nomadic spirit asserted itseK sufficiently to resist
any kind of settled government, and the organ
ization of society was slow and rudimentary. The
heads of the clans retained a sort of leadership,
but there was no systematic rule, save as it was
forced upon the people as a means of self-defence.
The state of things for a long time was tersely
summed up in the saying, " Every man did that
which was right in his own eyes," a condition of
practical anarchy which obviously could not last,
if Israel was to become a power even for its own
protection.

X
THE DEGENEEATION OF JEHOVISM
The religion which the people of Israel carried
into the land of Canaan did not differ so widely as
we are apt to suppose from that which they found
there. They had not yet learned to regard their
own God, Jehovah, as an exclusive deity, except
for themselves. They conceived of him as de
voted to them, and of themselves as bound to him
by a mutual covenant. He was to them a might
ier God than the Baal and Milkom, or Moloch, of
the Hittites and Amorites, or the Sydyk, or
Sedek, of the Jebusites, whose priest Melchisedek
must have been ; but he was simply their God, as
these were the gods of the Canaanites, and as
Chemosh was the god of Moab, whose rights they
recognized within his own jurisdiction. Though
to their minds Jehovah had conquered the land
and established his dominion there, they could not
divest themselves of a certain dread of the other
gocls, or resist wholly the seduction of their wor
ship. The weakness of their nature was appealed
to in the sensual rites of Baal-peor and Ashte-

52 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
roth in the groves of the " high places," and the
desire of simple people for some visible symbol of
the object of their worship caused them to lapse
easily into idolatry. In establishing their own
sacred places they took possession of those con
secrated by their predecessors, connecting with
them some tradition of their own race.
After they left the original camp at Gilgal, they
set up the portable sanctuary, which was the pal
ladium of their faith, first at Bethel, which became
a general rallying-point for all Israel and was
sanctified by the story of the covenant with Jacob.
It was afterward placed at Shiloh, which long
continued to be the centre of religious celebra-
tion for the new nation. The Ephraimites made
Shechem their principal sacred place, and conse
crated it with the legend of Abraham's visit and
Joseph's burial, and built altars on Mount Ebal
and Mount Gerizim. Au interesting indication of
how the gods were regarded is to be found in the
conduct of the bands of Eeubenites and Gadites,
who on returning to their own allotted land be
yond the Jordan, built an altar at the border,
lest they should be cut off from all share in the
protection of Jehovah. They afterward came, in
fact, to be regarded as aliens in religion and
blood, and finally fell out of the life of Israel and
were absorbed bv Moab and Ammon.

THE DEGENERATION OF JEHOVISM 53
The tendency to lapse into idolatry and to wor
ship other gods was accompanied by a degener
ation of Jehovism itself. There were cases of
imitation of the most hideous rite of Moloch, that
of human sacrifice, and the moral restraints of
devotion were almost lost sight of. But the most
conspicuous aspect of religion during the long
period from the settlement of the tribes in Canaan
to the consolidation of the nation under the kings,
came from an application of lessons learned in
Egyptian servitude. The serpent was a general
embodiment of divinity in Egypt, and for a long
time the Nehustan, or brazen serpent, was preserved
as a sacred talisman in Israel. According to one of
the Mosaic legends it was made by the great leader
as a protection against the " fiery serpents " in the
wilderness, but it could have served that purpose in
the popular mind only by being looked upon as in
some sort a symbol of Jehovah. It was cherished
as such until the strong reaction against the gross
materialism into which worship had fallen, wrought
by the influence of the first great prophets, caused
it to be destroyed with other tokens of idolatry.
There were other representations of Jehovah,
the form of which cannot be clearly ascertained,
and the images called teraphim were a sort of
household gods and part of the paraphernalia of
worship. Sorcery and divination had as strong a

54 THE JE WISH SCRIPTURES
hold at one time upon the children of Israel as
upon the children of other races, and was ac
companied by the same tendency to impose the
wisdom of sages upon the simple-minded as revela
tions of the divine will. In these practices, as may
be clearly seen in the story of Gideon, and that of
Micah, whose oracle was stolen by a band of mi
grating Danites, the symbols of Jehovah and his
worship were used. The Ephod and the Urim and
Thummim were originally mechanical devices used
in divination ; but when the temple hierarchy was
established they were relegated to the mystic
decoration of the vestments of the priests, and
the manner of their employment was suppressed
from common knowledge and finally forgotten.
Attenuated rudiments of a half-idolatrous past
were wrought into the externals of the temple
worship, which, it must be remembered, was first
established long before the detailed descriptions
were made of its imaginary germs in the appur
tenances of the Ark of the Covenant during the so
journ in the wilderness. Moses and Aaron and
the Levites, as they appear there, were the progeny
and not the progenitors of the temple priesthood.

XI
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE NATION
After the clans of Israel were distributed and
settled in the conquered land, without systematic
government or formal union of any kind, the ex
igencies forced upon them by aggressive enemies
or internal disorders were met for a long period by
a series of leaders, evolved by circumstances and
called sofetiia, a term of which the sense is im
perfectly conveyed in the familiar word " judges."
Their rule was not general, but local and partial,
according to the requirements of the situation,
and the line of such rulers was not continuous.
Their selection came about through their own as
sertion of their ability and force of character,
and the popular recognition of their capacity for
leadership in an emergency ; but perhaps at the
time, and certainly afterward, their authority was
generally attributed to the choice of Jehovah.
They were in effect dictators, who were looked to
for counsel in time of trouble and for guidance
and command in war, and once accepted they held

66 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
a certain sway while they lived, but did not trans
mit authority to any successor.
In the fragments of epic material preserved in the
Book of Judges a disconnected series of events
and exploits can be traced which fully illustrate this
stage in the life of Israel. There were periodical
troubles on all the borders of the land. At one
time an invading king from Mesopotamia op
pressed the people and they were delivered by a
leader named Othniel. Again the Moabites over
ran a part of the territory and brought it into
subjection, and a daring Benjaminite, named Ehud,
made his way to the head-quarters of their fat king
and assassinated him, and then rallied the people
to the fords of the Jordan and expelled the in
vaders with the customary slaughter. The next
serious affair recorded is the coming of a formi
dable Canaanite " king " from the far north, Jabin
of Hazor, with his great captain, Sisera, when the
leader that rose in Israel was a woman.
Deborah is interesting not only as a heroic
leader of the people in this emergency, but as the
first that appears in the record as exercising the
function of prophecy, which had such an im
portant development in later times. She appears
as dwelling under a palm-tree in the hill country,
where she was resorted to as a gifted seer, and
the keeper of the oracles of Jehovah. It was she

THE CHILDHOOD OF THE NATION 57
that called forth Barak as a military leader and
aroused the people against the terrible array of
Sisera and his chariots, and discomfited the hosts
of Jabin. The victory was sealed by the shrewd
and resolute treachery of Jael, with a tent-pin
driven into the temple of the sleeping Sisera.
Deborah's song of triumph, somewhat corrupted
in oral transmission and subsequent copying, is
perhaps the oldest specimen we have of the litera
ture of Israel's heroic age.
The country suffered much from predatory raids
of Midianites and Amalekites, until Gideon, of the
family of Abiezer, in Manasseh, rose as a leader
and deliverer of the people. His original name of
Jerubbaal indicates that the family was addicted
to the worship of Baal, while that of his son,
Abimelech, is suggestive of the cult of Moloch;
but with his assumption of leadership and a new
name, Gideon accepted to the full the authority of
Israel's God, Jehovah. The account of his skill
and prowess in rallying the forces of the northern
tribes and driving out the plundering bands that
overran the country is full of quaint incidents and
touches of poetic legend. The spoils of his pursuit
and slaughter of the Midianites beyond the Jordan
excited the cupidity and jealousy of Ephraim, who
was not summoned to help him at the beginning
of the campaign, and did not get a share of the

58 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
booty; but Ephraim was soothed by diplomatic
flattery. There is in the story a confusion of the
names of persons and places quite characteristic of
those ancient annals. Gideon's great exploit seems
to have excited the first impulse in Israel for set
ting up a king, but he preferred the security, rev
erence, and profit of setting- up an oracle to the
risks of premature sovereignty. But the ambition
which Gideon was shrewd enough to resist or to
avoid broke out in his illegitimate son, Abimelech,
who hatched a plot for setting up royalty at She
chem, with disastrous consequences to himself.
The people to the east of the Jordan, the Ma-
chirite branch of Manasseh, and the Gadites and
Eeubenites, had little in common with the rest of
Israel, and were already regarded almost as aliens,
but when they were harried and overrun by the
Ammonites they remembered their claim to the
protection of Jehovah, and their share in the her
itage of his people. Out of their struggles rose
one of the most famous of the " judges," whose
story, told with the color of a later time, is one of
the epic passages in their history. There is the
common confusion of the names of persons and
places in the representation of the hero of Gilead
as the son of Gilead, and it is in accordance with
many a popular fancy that the hero of the time
should be a bastard and an outlaw. Jephthah

THE CHILDHOOD OF THE NATION 59
must have been a vigorous and capable chieftain.
After being driven from Gilead by his family, he
became a brigand of such prowess that when a
military leader was needed for deliverance from
the Ammonites, the people were fain to call him
to the rescue.
He proved a bold and successful warrior, and
lashed the Ammonites through the land, driving
them from its borders with "great slaughter," and
when the men of Ephraim, whose jealousy was again
aroused, undertook to chastise him for not giving
them a share in the campaign and its victories, he
turned upon them, and not only drove them back
to their hills, but apparently brought them into
subjection to his own authority, for he is said to
have " judged Israel six years." It is impossible,
however, to determine how far his sway extended.
It was a part of the " system " of the compilers of
the record in after times to represent Jephthah as
the servant and instrument of Jehovah in rescuing
his people after they had been punished by their
enemies for their recreancy. But Jephthah's re
ligious character is left dubious, notwithstanding
the statement put in the mouths of his messengers
to the king of Amnion regarding the basis of Is
rael's claim to the land from the Arnon to the Jab
bok ; and his vow and the human sacrifice which
it involved savor more of Baal and Moloch than

OO THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of Jehovah. No doubt he accepted the God of Is
rael as he understood him, and worshipped him
according to his lights, but there was ever}r where
at that time a strong tendency to degrade him to
the level of the other deities. There is an essen
tial truth in the representation that this was a
grievous offence of the people, and the chief source
of their weakness in contending with their ene
mies. A semblance of continuity in the line of
"judges " is produced by a rather barren enumer
ation of those who rose here and there, and from
time to time, and disappeared without leaving any
enduring trace. The constant irritation and con
flict on the Philistine border gave rise to many
episodes and exploits, and out of some of their in
cidents was constructed one of the most curious
legends of this primitive stage of the national life.
Nothing is more attractive to children in their
physical weakness than stories of giants, or of per
sons of tremendous strength, and every nation in
its childhood has had its tales of heroes of great
stature and enormous might. Whatever basis of
fact there may have been for the legend of the
crafty and daring, the morally equivocal, but
physically powerful Danite hero, Samson, it was
evidently wrought with many threads of myth
and romance, for it is by no means congruous

THE CHILDHOOD OF THE NATION 61
with its setting. Sun-worship and its symbols
were not unknown on the Phoenician border.
In the old Babylonian mythology there was a
prototype . of Hercules, and it is not unlikely that
traditions of the Hellenic demi-god himself existed
among the Philistines, who were akin to the
Greeks in origin.
Three distinct tendencies are noticeable in the
annals of primitive society. Warlike heroes and
bold adventurers are apt to be, or are represented
as being, illegitimate sons of noble sires. Super
natural paternity is attributed to persons who be
come deified in the popular mind, and those who
are held in highest esteem as great leaders or
teachers are often said to have been the offspring
by divine favor of mature mothers previously bar
ren. When the popular tales of Samson's exploits
in conflict with the Philistines, his crafty devices
and feats of strength, the wiles which he practised
and of which he became a victim, through his Her
culean weakness for women, came to be woven into
the fabric of Israel's history, threads and colors
from the sun myth were left clearly visible. The
hero's character was dignified in the later record
by a divine interposition in his maternity, by being
devoted as a "Nazarite unto God" from infancy,
and by being raised to the rank of a " Judge of Is
rael." While there is an almost grotesque incon-

62 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
gruity in the blending of the elements that form
the consecrated legend, it is done with that Se
mitic simplicity and semblance of a plain narrative
of fact which so long deterred critical analysis.
The episode of Micah and his oracle, to which we
have already made a passing allusion, is mainly in
teresting and significant as illustrating the charac
ter of the worship of the time and the function of
the Levite in its germ. The story is much older
than the account of the origin of the priesthood in
Aaron and his sons, and the creation of the tribe
of Levi as one of the offspring of Jacob. The
hireling of the oracle of Jehovah, deriving his name
and office from memories of Egypt, was the real
father of " the priest, the Levite." The appropri
ation of Micah's graven images, ephod, and priest,
by a migrating band of Danites, and the setting up
of the paraphernalia of divination at Laish, are
made to overshadow in the record the other inci
dents of the migration. But there was the usual
seizure of coveted places, and the ruthless slaugh
ter and plunder of the previous occupants, which
always characterized the conquests of the time.
As the episode of Micah and the Danites illus
trates the state of religion, that of the Levite of
Ephraim and his concubine of Bethlehem-Judah,
illustrates the moral condition in the time of the
"judges." The outrage at Gibeah reminds one

THE CHILDHOOD OF THE NATION 63
of the morals of Sodom in the time of Lot, but
fhe two stories are of about the same age and
based upon the manners prevailing at the time
they were told. The fact that the other tribes
were rallied against Benjamin to avenge the wrong
upon the poor Levite shows that it was regarded
with abhorrence elsewhere in Israel. The same
thing was indicated in the vow at Mizpah that
there should be no more intermarrying with the
iniquitous Benjaminites. The war upon Benjamin
stopped short of extermination, that a tribe of
Israel might not be " cut off," and the perpetu
ation of the tribe was further guaranteed by bar
barous devices for furnishing wives to its warriors
without violating the rash vow against giving them
daughters of other tribes. The people of Jabesh-
Gilead, having no part in that inviolable vow, had
to be slaughtered that the virgins of their city
might be captured as wives for Benjamin, and, the
supply being insufficient, advantage was taken of
the feast of the Lord at Shiloh to seize the maidens
who came out to dance. So was the inheritance
of Benjamin restored and Israel was again at
peace, in the days when " there was no king and
every man did that which was right in his own
eyes." They were days when Israel gave little
promise of fulfilling the high destiny that awaited
her.

XII
SETTING UP A KINGDOM
As the people of Israel multiplied and their as
cendency over the subjugated races increased, the
tribes grew closer together, and the national spirit
gradually developed. This was especially the case
in that central region which included, at no great
distance from each other, the places about which
the traditions of the people clustered — Hebron,
Bethel, Shiloh, and Shechem. The need of a
closer union for purposes of defence was felt more
and more. There were periodical attacks from the
Ammonites on the eastern border, and constant raids
from the plundering Amalekites of the south.
The ever -hostile and aggressive Philistines on the
west were a constant provocation to the consolida
tion of the tribes for defensive warfare. Though
Philistia was a small, and not a populous country,
its superior civil and military organization made
it almost always victorious in its attacks.
For a long time no warlike leader rose in Israel,
and the people began to plead for a " king " who
should lead them to battle against their enemies.

SETTING UP A KINGDOM 65
Their only " judge " seems to have been the priest
at Shiloh, Avhere the " ark of the Lord " had found
its resting-place, and whither the people made pil
grimages to offer sacrifices to Jehovah. The ex
periment of relying upon their God alone, and car
rying the ark which he was supposed to inhabit at
the head of their little army, to strike terror into
the Philistines, proved disastrous. The ark was
captured and carried away, to the consternation of
the confiding people. A pious tradition grew up
that, like the arrows of Apollo, it carried pestilence
into the ranks of the enemy, who were driven by
their calamities to send it back with placatory
offerings symbolic of their sufferings. It proved
to be as deadly to those who looked upon it at
Beth-shean as it had been at Ashdod, but it lost
its virulence in the keeping of a sanctified priest
at Kiriath-jearim. But this experience showed
more and more the need of some valiant warrior as
a leader. An interesting incident of this period is the first
appearance of the " prophet," in the later sense of
the term, with a distinct political function, though
Deborah was a forerunner of this character. The
story of Samuel, as we have it, is made up of
two diverse accounts, imperfectly blended, which
show him in two distinct aspects. The more at
tractive appears in the older material, which is
5

66 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
also more historical, though woven with the usual
legendary elements, such as those relating to his
birth and his dedication in infancy to the little
sanctuary at Shiloh. The Jehovism of the time
shows little improvement, as indicated in the
scandals of the sons of Eli, the superstitious reli
ance upon a kind of sacred sorcery, and the lack
of moral elevation. There seems to have been
conventicles of "prophets," whose practice of
working themselves into a convulsive state of en
thusiasm by music and dances has had its coun
terpart ever since in Oriental lands.
Samuel appears to have been resorted to as a
seer, and an oracle, and he differed from others of
his class only in greater sagacity and higher
character, which led to the prominent part taken
by him in establishing the kingdom under Saul.
Of this part traces of two inconsistent accounts
are left in the record. That which represents
him as averse to complying with the popular wish
for a king, and Jehovah as acquiescing with re
luctance, was imposed by the compiler after the
theocratic idea of a later time had developed,
when there was a strong reaction toward the ideals
of the pastoral age and a complete reliance upon
the God of Israel. The real political and religious
activity of the time was limited to a small area, of
which Gibeah may be regarded as the centre.

SETTING UP A KINGDOM 07
Benjamin was small, but was the chief repository
of the warlike spirit, and it was the natural place
in which to look for a military leader. Shiloh
was not many miles from Gibeah, while Eamah,
the residence of the great seer, was close by
on the north, and the height of Mizpah, a popu
lar rallying-place, was equally close on the south.
There can be no doubt that, during the agitation
for a king, Samuel saw a likely candidate in the
stalwart son of Kish, who was familiar to the
fraternity of prophets.

XIII
THE FIEST KING
No authentic details could be drawn from the
conflicting statements of the record, even if its
material had a historic quality, but it is known
that Saul became the first king of Israel, and it
was undoubtedly due to his physical stature and
prowess, and his fitness for military leadership.
Whether Samuel sought him out or took advantage
of his coming to consult the oracle about the
whereabouts of stray asses, and anointed him be
forehand as the coming monarch ; whether the
prophet called the people together at Mizpah and
there presented their king, who modestly tried to
evade the honor ; or whether Saul was invested
with royalty at Gilgal, after having first displayed
his prowess by slaughter of the Ammonite as
sailants of Jabesh-Gilead, and as the result of
popular acclaim for a new hero, does not matter.
Saul became the king, and the prophet was no
doubt instrumental in making him the king.
It is difficult for us to adapt our ideas to the
real proportions of these events, viewed across the

THE FIRST KING 69
intervening tract of human history, and through
the haze which religious faith has thrown over
them in the varying course of thirty centuries.
It was a primitive time in a primitive land, a land
neither extensive nor populous, with a mixture of
inhabitants of different origin, the dominant people
being of various tribes loosely associated. There
was no systematic government, and Saul's author
ity was little different in kind, and not much
greater in extent, than that of Jephthah or Gideon.
Eoyalty was nominally established, and the title
of king was adopted, but Saul was essentially a
military chieftain. His sway was acknowledged
by the tribes, but was effective only so far as he
might assert and maintain it.
From the two inconsistent documents irregular
ly pieced together to form the record we now have,
with such other help as research has afforded, we
gather that the reign of Saul was successful in its
earlier years, while he was engaged in combating
the enemies of Israel, but his sagacity was not equal
to his heroism, and he was of a vacillating tem
perament. Prone to superstition and to consulting
oracles, he still seems to have been apt to disre
gard what purported to be the word of Jehovah,
and thus to incur the displeasure of the great
prophet upon whom he mainly relied for counsel.
In his continual warfare with the Philistines

70 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
he had the soldier's instinct for selecting capable
warriors to lead in the fight, and when he " saw
any mighty man, or any valiant man, he took him
unto him." Among the most valiant and skilful of
his lieutenants was his own son, Jonathan.
No doubt there were perilous adventures and
strange incidents in the guerilla warfare of those
days, and it is not remarkable if the accounts, put
together long after, are filled with legendary ele
ments. The later compiler diffused over them a
theocratic gloss in accounting for any significant
turn in events. Saul and Jonathan were in the
main successful in their campaigns against the ag
gressive Philistines, and the king is also repre
sented as administering chastisement to Ammon,
Moab, and Amalek, beyond the borders of his do
minion. Fragments of original material are so
incoherently mixed in the record that no clear
statement of the order of events can be extracted
from them, and more authentic material is lacking,
but the general significance of what happened is
not difficult to discern.
Popular dissatisfaction with a reign like that of
Saul was inevitable, on account of his lack of the
arts of leadership, except in actual warfare, and
his want of tact in dealing with men in civil life,
and with the conditions about him. It is not
a pleasing view of the character of Samuel, and it

THE FIRST KING 71
is probably not an authentic one, which presents
him as the head of a plot for raising David to the
throne in the lifetime of Saul. It comes from the
writers of the Davidic dynasty of Judah, intent
upon sanctifying its origin. Samuel is represent
ed as turning against Saul, and Jehovah as repent
ing of having made him king, because he was not
sufficiently ruthless in slaughtering the Amalekites
and destroying everything that came in his way
in the expedition against them. The venerable
prophet is even shown in the act of hewing in
pieces the captured king, Agag, with his own hand ;
and in his mourning over the disobedient Saul, he
sought out the Bethlehemite son of Jesse, and
anointed him betimes as king over Israel.
The actual manner of David's first appearance
on the scene is involved in obscurity. His first
meeting with Saul is described in two different
ways. The king was subject to fits of depression,
bordering upon insanity, and could only be soothed
by music. David, already answering to the de
scription of a " mighty man of valor and a man of
war," as well as prudent in speech, comely in per
son, and " cunning " in playing the harp, was sent
for to solace the king with music, and became a
favorite attendant. According to the other ac
count the king first knew of David after the battle
with the Philistines at which the giant Goliath was

72 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
slain. This curious legend seems to be an ex
ample of the Hebrew practice of personifying
events and places and masses of men when reduc
ing oral tradition to writing. There may have
been a Philistine warrior of gigantic stature, known
as Goliath, whose huge sword was kept as a tro
phy, but it is likely that the defeat of a large
body of Philistines by a smaller body of Israel
ites, under this " mighty man of valor " from Beth
lehem, was the source of the story of the mailed
giant of Gath, slain by a stripling slinger of Judah
with pebbles from the brook.
This view may be supported by the fragment of
song, apparently from the " Jasher " and the old
est words in the record of Saul's reign, which rep
resents the women as shouting :
" Saul hath slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands,"
at the time of the victor's return from the battle.
David was doubtless one of the mighty and val
iant men whom Saul had taken unto himself in his
wars, and from his part in that victory, and the
credit he won by it, came the beginning of the
King's jealousy, and perhaps also of the admira
tion and attachment of his son Jonathan. At all
events, in the valiant and adventurous son of
Jesse appeared a figure which was the very an-

THE FIRST KING 73
tithesis of the robust Benjaminite of Gibeah.
David was not merely valiant in war, but he was
sagacious, versatile, handsome, and a consummate
master of the art of popularity. As Saul lost pres
tige, David became the idol of the people and an
object of strong attachment, not only to the king's
favorite son, but to his daughter, Michal. With his
disordered temperament and accumulating troubles,
it is little wonder if Saul's jealousy of his youthful
rival, whom he made his son-in-law as well as his
armor-bearer, was sometimes raging.

XIV
DAVID AS AN OUTLAW
It does not appear in the account that David
ever plotted directly against his sovereign, how
ever much others may have plotted in his behalf,
and however little he may have sought to avoid
the popularity which his captivating personality
excited. But doubtless the king in his fits of vio
lence sought the life of the man who won favor so
easily and so rapidly, while his own prestige was
waning, and he seems to have deliberately con
trived to put him in deadly peril. The "evil
spirit" which incited Saul to make personal at
tempts upon David's life was doubtless the spirit
of uncontrollable temper, severely wrought upon,
though indications also appear of actual mental
derangement. Michal and Jonathan more than
once saved the object of their regard from their
father's wrath, and when the danger became too
great the prince aided in the escape of the friend
who was afterward to seize the inheritance of his
family. David fled once to Samuel and his coterie of

DAVID AS AN OUTLAW 75
young " prophets " at Eamah, and ventured to re
turn, only to find the king more than ever in
censed. He next took refuge with a priest at
Nob, where the " sword of Goliath " seems to have
been deposited as a trophy ; but finding that his
whereabouts was known to a treacherous Edomite
servant of Saul, he betook himself boldly to the
chief enemy of his country, the Philistine king, at
Gath. But he was known there as a formidable
warrior from whom the Philistines had suffered,
and he had to feign madness in order to escape
with his life. We may as well follow the recorded
events from this point without inquiring too closely
as to what is tradition and what authentic history,
since there is no means of ascertaining, and it is
not unlikely that the substance of the record was
derived from David's own reminiscences in his
later days.
Having escaped from Gath he placed his father's
family in safety in Moab, the reputed home of his
grandfather's maternal ancestors, and himself took
refuge in a cave among the hills of Judah, whither
the disaffected and lawless of the kingdom resorted
to him, and became under his leadership a band of
outlaws and bandits. The term seems harsh, but
it is a mere fact that for some time David led the
life of a brigand chief, and was regarded by Saul
as a public enemy and a dangerous conspirator,

76 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
not altogether without reason. The king inflicted
a merciless penalty upon the priests of Nob for
having harbored the outlaw, and when David and
his band made a bold foray to rescue Keilah from
the Philistines they narrowly escaped the ven
geance of Saul, who prepared to capture them at
that place. Eeturning to the strongholds of the
mountains and the fastnesses of the wilderness of
Ziph, the chieftain kept up communication with
Jonathan, from whom he received warning when in
danger of pursuit. There are two stories of the
king being in David's power and having his life
spared. Certainly the outlaw was too shrewd a
man to force his cause by any deed of violence
against the " Lord's anointed," and he bided the
time when he could bring the people to his sup
port without the domestic broils and bloodshed
that would have made his tenure of power uncer
tain. His magnanimity is represented as having
disarmed the ill-will of Saul, but neither prudence
nor policy dictated compliance with the king's ad
vances for a return to favor.
David appears in anything but a pleasing hght
in the episode of the rich Carmelite, from whom
he proposed to extort spoil on the plea that he
had previously refrained from plundering him, and
whose widow he took as a " wife " after she had
exhibited the tact and complacency of which the

DAVID AS AN OUTLAW 77
churlish Nabal was incapable, that person having
conveniently died of chagrin.
To escape from the perils and uncertainties of
brigandage within the dominion of Saul, and to
avoid the constant danger of capture, David finally
betook himself again to the king of Gath, having
this time a formidable band of warriors at his com
mand, and two alien women as " wives." He
induced the Philistine monarch to turn over the
town of Ziklag to him, and thence he made plun
dering raids in various directions. When he
slaughtered and spoiled the friends of his bene
factor he pretended to have been committing out
rages upon his own country. He set out to
accompany King Achish on one of his campaigns
against Israel, but being distrusted he was sent
back, only to find that the Amalekites had plun
dered Ziklag, made captives of the women and chil
dren, and set fire to the town.
The pursuit and slaughter and the capture of
spoils from the predatory tribe are chiefly interest
ing from the use made of the plunder. David's
sending presents about to towns in Judah shows
that he was not neglectful of his opportunities for
gaining favor, but had his eye upon the power to
which Samuel was reputed to have consecrated
him while he was yet keeping his father's flocks.
The expedition of the Philistines, from which

78 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
David had been induced to turn back, lest he
prove a traitor, resulted disastrously to Saul, who
was in desperate straits since he had lost the coun
sel of the prophet of Eamah. The king needed
a wiser head than his own at any time, but his in
firmities had now grown upon him. He consulted
the oracle by the peculiar divination of the Ephod,
he resorted to sorcery and witchcraft, and was at
his wit's end. The story of the Avitch of Endor
throws a lurid light upon the superstition of the
time. The hard fact is that the Philistines were
victorious, Saul and Jonathan were killed, and
David found the throne of Israel within his reach
at last.

XV.
A DYNASTY ESTABLISHED
With the establishment of the Davidic dynasty
we can for the first time reach an approximate
date in the history of Israel. The fixing of the
seat of power at Jerusalem was not far from 1025
B.C., and the events which led up to it were nearly
concurrent with the opening of the heroic age of
Aryan history, when the material was supplied for
the epic poetry of Greece.
David was still at Ziklag when he heard of the
defeat of Saul at Mount Gilboa, and of the death
of the king and three of his sons. The compiler
of the annals does not scruple to represent him as
barbarously slaying the messenger who brought
the news, though the excuse given does not agree
with the statement of the manner of Saul's death,
which was by his own hand, and not that of the
luckless bearer of evil tidings. David's mourning
for Saul and Jonathan may have been sincere, but
it did not prevent his taking prompt advantage of
a situation which he had shrewdly helped to bring
about. He went through the form of getting from

80 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the Ephod a confirmation of his purpose to pro
ceed to Hebron and set himself up as king over
his own tribe of Judah, whose favor he had lost no
opportunity of winning.
The line of division between Judah and Eph
raim had always been clearly marked, and to these
two the other tribes were subordinate. It required
all the sagacity of which David was master to
bring about the consolidation of the monarchy.
Abner, Saul's chief military commander, made haste
to set up the dead king's surviving son, Ishbosh
eth, or more properly Ish-baal, in his stead, taking
him beyond Jordan to Mahanaim for the purpose.
David's chief man of war was Joab, a member of
his own family, and to him was chiefly left the
conduct of the contest with the house of Saul.
There are curious Homeric incidents in the ac
count of the conflicts between the two military
chieftains, into which a personal feud entered.
Abner, getting into a quarrel with his king over a
concubine, undertook to betray the realm into the
hands of David. The latter entertained the propo
sition on condition of getting back his first wife,
Michal, now married to another, but Joab, sus
picious of Abner and bitterly hostile to him, found
occasion to put him out of the way. David osten
tatiously condemned the deed and mourned for
Abner, but he did not fail to retain the services of

A DYNASTY ESTABLISHED 81
his bold and bloody warrior. Two of Ishbosheth's
captains, thinking to profit with David by assas
sinating their master, received the reward of trai
tors, and the king professed great wrath at the
death of Saul's son, but he promptly made a
"covenant'' with his adherents, and became king
over all Israel.
As a part of his policy for uniting the nation,
David abandoned Hebron as his capital, as being
closely identified with his own tribe, and avoided
choosing any place identified with the rival tribes.
The Jebusites still occupied their ancient strong
hold on Mount Sion, and deemed it impregnable,
insomuch that there was a proverb that it could be
defended by the blind and lame. But David seized
this neutral spot, and availed himself of the skill
of the Phoenicians to build his capital there, giving
to the world its chief centre of religious influence
and association for ages, though he had little con
ception of its destiny, and there he took unto him
self more wives and concubines, after the manner
of the monarchs of his time.
After repelling the first assault of the Philistines,
who undertook to test their strength against the
new kingdom, David bethought him of bringing
the " Ark of God " from its place of repose in the
house of Abinadab, in order that the dwelling-place
of Jehovah might be at the new centre of national
6

82 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
power. To us there is something grotesque in the
pageants and ceremonies with which this ancient
shrine was transferred, with an untoward accident
on the way, to the place where it was really to be
come the palladium of a nation's faith. But these
were in keeping with the spirit of the age, and cal
culated to impress the people as no other form of
celebration could. The scorn of Michal was that
of one who had no appreciation of the value of the
consecration of the nation to its chosen deity.
The story of David's purpose to build a house for
the Lord at this time, and of his diversion from
this purpose by the prophet Nathan, is a later pro
duction, interpolated in the record as a part of the
scheme of the later chroniclers, to give at all points
a divine sanction to the dynasty of David, and to
its perpetuation.

XVI
THE EEIGN OF DAVID
The reign of David is represented as one of
blood and conquest in its earlier years, and of in
testine plots and intrigues in its later part. He is
said to have subdued the Philistines and to have
inflicted chastisement upon the neighboring lands,
smiting their kings and exacting spoils from them,
which he " dedicated unto the Lord." His warfare
was prosecuted with ruthless cruelty, from which
Moab was not exempt, though it was afterward re
puted to be the land of his grandfather's maternal
ancestry, and had been the refuge of his family when
he was an outlaw. But in none of these conquests
was there any acquisition of territory, or final sub
jection of the alien people. An attempt to es
tablish a friendly alliance with Ammon met with
a rebuff and the usual vindictive consequences.
Meantime the policy of placating the adherents
of the house of Saul, and of guarding against plots
in that quarter was continued by taking in direct
charge its principal heir, Mephibosheth, or Meri-
baal, the crippled son of Jonathan.

84 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
The government of David was in effect that of
an absolute monarch, whose will, tempered by dis
cretion, was the only law, and whose rule was
sustained by popular submission and by military
force. The nucleus of his army was made up of
the warriors of his days of brigandage, including
a large proportion of Philistine soldiers, and his
most capable captains, with the exception of Joab
and his brothers, were of alien blood. The native
spirit of Israel was not warlike. The inevitable
result of the oriental practice of polygamy and
concubinage was harem intrigues and division in
the royal household. The latter part of David's
reign was darkened by plots, headed by a son who
possessed many of his own captivating qualities,
and had a strong hold upon his affections.
The story of Absalom's insurrection and the
incidents connected with it throw a strong light
upon the manners and morals of the time. That
of David's infamous conduct in gaining possession
of the wife of Uriah, the Hittite captain in his
army, is, we are glad to believe, of doubtful authen
ticity, but that it should have been retained in the
record, accounting for the origin in the royal
family of Solomon's mother, is evidence that there
was no appreciation of the moral turpitude of the
conduct attributed to the king, even in the later
time when the record was finally made up. The

THE REIGN OF DA VID 85
touches relating to the death of Bath-sheba's first
child and the birth of Solomon seem highly char
acteristic of the time, even including the strange
sense of justice imputed to Jehovah. The gross
conceptions regarding sexual relations which pre
vailed appear strikingly in the incident of Am
nion's treatment of his half-sister and Absalom's
full sister, Tamar, in which the deception and
force employed seem to have constituted the of
fence, which was so savagely avenged by Absalom.
The bloody deed of slaying a brother to avenge a
sister's shame led to Absalom's alienation from his
father's house, and indirectly to the insurrection
which he afterward raised to gain his father's
throne. After the young man had passed three years in
exile with his kinsman, the king of Geshur, his
safe return was managed by Joab ; but it was long
before he could be safely brought face to face with
the king. As soon as a reconciliation seemed to
have been effected, the handsome prince began to
ply the arts of popularity to win the hearts of the
fickle populace, and having enticed one of his
father's chief counsellors into his plot and sent
emissaries among the tribes whose loyalty was
always uncertain, he withdrew to Hebron to head
the insurrection under the pretence of fulfilling a
vow to Jehovah, made in the days of his exile.

86 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
One of the most pathetic pictures in history is
that of the broken-hearted king meekly aban
doning his capital, and making his way with his
faithful followers over the hills and across ' the
Jordan to Mahanaim, while his heartless but be
loved son usurped his place by treachery and
violence. Among the most faithful of his adhe
rents were the foreign mercenaries of his little
national guard, who had shared in all his varying
fortunes, and those most ready to insult him in
his calamity were of the family of Saul. The old
division was never healed.
The struggle for overcoming the rebellion, with
the resources of subtlety and craft, and the skil
ful use of the little army still at the king's com
mand, was left in the hands of the bold and
resourceful Joab, and the counsellors who still
remained faithful. The stern old warrior knew
better than to heed the pathetic appeal to " deal
gently for my sake with the young man," and he
effectually broke the rebellion by taking advan
tage of the young man's entanglement by the hair,
of which he was so proud, to put an end to him.
Again Joab angered the king by doing him a
bloody service, and boldly taxed him with weak
ness when he wept over his reprobate son. As
the men of Judah flocked back to their allegiance
and some of the other tribes hastened to make

THE REIGN OF DAVID 87
their peace with the outraged sovereign, David
sought to unite their forces by taking Absalom's
chief captain to his confidence. This did not pre
vent a rebellious remnant of Israel from keeping
up the contest, and Joab, smarting with resent
ment and jealousy, killed his newly found rival
Amasa, and proceeded to crush the king's enemies
with his usual energy, thus maintaining the ascen
dancy he had so often imperilled. In fact Joab's
brutal qualities served David many a good turn,
and relieved him of dangerous responsibilities,
and while the king repudiated the rude warrior's
bloody deeds, he never found it convenient or
safe in his own lifetime to dispense with his
services. The duplicity with which David dealt with his
domestic enemies and profited by the treachery
and boldness of others, without accepting the re
sponsibility of their acts with the benefit, is one
of the darkest stains on his name ; but it was a
kind of policy exacted hj expediency and common
to rulers of his time. In the combination of
strong qualities in David's character his faults
were on the same scale as his merits. Without
this combination of qualities he would probably
not have founded the dynasty which produced
such wonderful consequences in the world's his
tory. As the house of Saul never lost its hatred of

88 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the king who had seized its heritage, so David
never lost his suspicion of the survivors of that
house, and one of the most repellent incidents of his
career is the subterfuge by which he compassed
the death of the sons of Eizpah and Michal. Car
ing for the bones of Saul and Jonathan made no
amends for such deeds, but how far it is David
and how far it is the later historian that put this
outrage upon the Gibeonites and credited it to
" the Lord," it is hard to say.
If we penetrate the illusion cast over the an
tique record by the later writers, and by the gloss
of centuries of veneration, we shall find that
David's religious character was no higher than
his moral standard, and that neither was above
or beyond his race and time. His conception of
Jehovah was not much different from that preva
lent in the time of the Judges. He consulted the
omens with the Ephod, and he made sacrifices on
special occasions ; he regarded that ancient relic
of the Egyptian deliverance, the Ark of the Cov
enant, as the dwelling-place of God among his
people, and he worshipped at times, after the
manner of his age, with a confusion of noises and
convulsive saltation. But in the oldest record
there is little of the divine element, or of super
natural intervention, and nothing of the miracu
lous. The priestly compiler of the Chronicles,

THE REIGN OF DA VID 89
who hundreds of years later took the life and color
out of David's history, attributed to him the work
of centuries in building up the temple service, as
it existed after the Captivity, but the account is
artificial and based upon a long process of develop
ment of which hardly the germ existed in David's
day. There is no doubt that, with his strong emo
tional nature, David was subject to great elevation
and depression of feeling, and he doubtless had a
genius for expression. It is not improbable that
the lament over Saul and Jonathan, much as we
have it, was his production ; it is certain that the
song of deliverance from his enemies was not. A
few of the older "psalms" may be David's, but
that is not certain, while it is beyond doubt that
nearly all of the collection is of later date.
Near the close of David's reign there seems to
have been a period of famine and of consequent or
attendant " pestilence," which was, as usual, at
tributed to the anger of Jehovah. This wrath was
accounted for by the harmless and useful act of
taking a census of the people, which may or may
not really have been attempted, and the instiga
tion of that act is ascribed in the earliest account
to " the Lord," and in the later version to " Satan."
In their earlier days the Israelites had not suf
ficient power of computation to number their lim
ited population, and the attempt was considered

90 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
an offence. In later time this calculation of
strength and resources was regarded as a sinful
failure to rely upon Jehovah's arm rather than
upon numbers. The account of this enumeration
by Joab, under David's orders, and of its conse
quences, in which the innocent were the sufferers,
and of the reparation made to the Lord, is inter
esting only for the hght it casts upon those times.
It is a melancholy picture, that of the last days
of the "man of blood" and the man of passion,
cherished into warmth by the beautiful girl of
Shunam, and surrounded by the intrigues of the
palace and the harem over the succession to the
throne. Not less sad, after the favorite queen,
Bath-sheba, with the support of Nathan the proph
et and Zadok the priest, had induced the aged
king to discountenance the hasty action of Adoni
jah and to sanction the choice of Solomon, is the
spectacle of his enjoining upon his son and heir
the duty of inflicting upon Joab a barbarous pen
alty for the deeds of violence he had committed in
the service of the king. It was a death-bed dark
ened with the spirit of resentment and of ven
geance.

XVII
THE GLOEY OF SOLOMON
The reign of Solomon, from about 995 to 955
B.C., covered a period of comparative peace, stable
government, and material development. The ac
counts of it which we have contain httle or none
of that fresh and original material, saturated with
the color and spirit of the time, which makes up
the substance of the story of the Judges and of
Saul and David. The earliest of these accounts,
contained in the Book of Kings, was written more
than four hundred years after the time to which it
relates, when the body of statutes and ordinances
attributed to Jehovah " by the mouth of Moses "
had been built up, the ceremonies of the temple
had been organized and developed, the spirit of
Jehovism had been broadly modified by the great
prophets, and the theocratic idea had become
dominant. There was a body of official records,
and a varied mass of other material, written and
oral, at the command of the compiler, which he
did not wholly succeed in harmonizing, though he
made it difficult to set historic facts in a clear

92 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
light. What may be called a Solomon legend had
grown up, founded on the reputed wisdom and
magnificence of the king who ruled at the height
of the worldly power of Israel ; and on the other
hand, there were unfavorable estimates of his char
acter and achievements, which were not wholly
effaced though they emanated from unfriendly
sources. The Ephraimite writers infused into the
literature of the later time a tinge of discredit to
the Davidic . dynasty, which was never entirely
purged out, and the character and deeds of its
first great rulers did not commend them to the
sympathy of those stern puritans of the nation,
the prophets.
The later account, that of the Book of Chroni
cles, was written long after the captivity and the
restoration, after the levitical system and the
priesthood of the second temple were fully estab
lished, and there is scarcely anything in it, that
can be regarded as historical, which is not bor
rowed directly from the earlier one. Its evident
purpose is to conform the events of the reigns of
David and Solomon to the theory of the divine
origin and destiny of the nation, after the calami
ties through which it had passed for its lapses
from fidelity to Jehovah. The point to be kept in
mind is that the Solomon of these books is a Solo
mon viewed by the writers, centuries after his day,

THE GLORY OF SOLOMON 93
through the light of the intervening national ex
periences, and under the influence of their religious
preoccupations. Among the first acts of the new king was the
putting to death of the elder brother who had at
tempted to forestall him, and the deed does not
appear in any better light, because a pretext was
made for it in the fact that the disappointed prince
sought the Shunammite maiden, Abishag, as a con
solation for his loss. Joab had supported the pre
tensions of Adonijah, and that, rather than the
dying injunction of David, was the cause of his
violent death. The priest Abiathar was also an
offender on the same ground, and was banished,
and it did not take long to find occasion for put
ting the last scion of the house of Saul out of the
way, the same who had cursed David in his calam
ity and whose punishment the old king on his
death-bed had committed to his successor. So
was the kingdom " established greatly."
Out of the tradition of Solomon's great wisdom
sprang the story of the revelation in a dream at
Gibeon, which is interesting as an indication that
the old form of divination had gone out of use ; but
it is to be noted that the word translated "wis
dom " means rather skill in government in the ori
ental sense. This Solomon undoubtedly possessed
in a high degree, and the time was favorable to its

94 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
exercise. The nation for the first time com
manded the respect of the Philistines, and it had
a friendly compact with Phoenicia. Solomon also
strengthened his kingdom by an alliance with
Egypt, and married a princess of its reigning
family as one of his many wives. He never actu
ally extended his own dominion beyond the limits
of Palestine, the statements in that regard being
unfounded. Edom maintained its freedom, Moab
and Ammon were tributary, but not subject to his
authority, and Syria was a formidable neighbor be
tween him and " the river." It was not a reign of
conquest but of security. The army lost prestige,
and a rude civil organization was devised, mainly
to collect revenues and carry on public works.
David may have bequeathed to his son the duty
of building a "house for God," but it was an era
of temple building, and a temple as well as a
palace was a necessary appurtenance of a great
capital. The Egyptian Queen may have had
something to do with inspiring in the king grand
ideas on this subject, while his alliance with Hiram
of Tyre enabled him to draw upon Phoenician art
and skill for the great works he had in view.
Several years were spent in the construction of the
first temple at Jerusalem, and of palaces and other
buildings required by the growing sovereignty of
Israel. The first thing to be attended to was a

THE GLORY OF SOLOMON 93
sumptuous residence for the daughter of Pharaoh,
who was accustomed to luxury, and the king's
palace and the temple followed. There is no more
authentic account of the building of the temple
than that of the Bible, with its impossible details.
The structure was neither large nor impressive,
though massive in style, and apparently lavish in
crude decoration. Owing to the Hebrew lack of
originality and taste in art, the architecture was
Egyptian, modified by Phoenician ideas. Aversion
to the use of human or animal forms in decora
tion, on account of the incitement to idolatry, led
to the employment mainly of vegetable and geo
metric designs in the embellishment of the temple,
the only exception being the glorified sphinxes
called cherubim.
Not only the art and skill, but much of the
material for Solomon's constructions, was derived
from the Tyrian realm, and the rough labor was
forced largely from the remnant of the Canaanites,
who were reduced to a condition of serfdom. The
appliances of the new sanctuary, apart from the
interior abode of Jehovah, were for the gross
worship of the time by sacrifices, burnt-offerings,
and incense, and material and workmanship for
these also were supplied mainly from Tyre. Pay
ment was made in the natural products of the
country, and was a severe exaction upon the re-

96 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
sources of the people. The temple itself was an
appurtenance of the government rather than of the
nation, a sanctuary of the royal household and not
of the people. The king conducted the occasional
ceremonies there, while the worship in the " high
places " continued, and it was long after this day
that Jerusalem became the centre of religious
aspiration, and the temple an object of popular
pride and reverence. The account of the dedica
tion is an artificial product of a far later time, into
which much was introduced that belonged to the
developed system of the temple ceremonial. The
compiler of Chronicles even infuses into it some
thing of the ritual of the second temple, of which
there was no conception in Solomon's day. The
prayer attributed to the king is utterly anachron
istic, the language, sentiments, and spirit being
those of the time of Jeremiah, whose history and
writings were put into form by the author of the
Book of Kings.
In all this work, in spite of forced labor and
heavy exactions, Solomon became so indebted to
Hiram as to be compelled to transfer to him a
number of towns in the land of Galilee, of which
the Tyrian king had no high opinion, though the
later chronicler reverses the transaction and rep
resents Hiram as the donor. But Solomon had
other dealings with his enterprising ally, and to-

THE GLORY OF SOLOMON 97
gether they engaged in foreign traffic by way of
the Eed Sea to Ophir and Tarshish, which appear
to correspond respectively to India and Spain.
Considering how little Palestine produced for ex
change, the volume of wealth brought from these
sources, though doubtless exaggerated in the ac
count, raises the suspicion that the methods of
these expeditions were somewhat piratical. The
impression of the wealth and abundance at Jeru
salem is rather delusive. While parts of the land
of Palestine were generously productive, the con
ditions of life were simple, and there was little of
what is now regarded as systematic industry, and
practically nothing of what we mean by domestic
trade. Solomon's dealings with Hiram were sub
stantially those of barter ; exchange in the modern
sense was unknown, and money was little used,
and only by tale. The apparent plenitude was
mainly that of the royal household and the court,
and the luxury of the capital did not imply pros
perity, or even comfort, throughout the land.
The real Solomon could hardly have been a
devout person, and his attachment to Jehovah as
the national God was somewhat perfunctory and
easy-going. He was tolerant of the religious pref
erences of those who were attracted or stimulated
by the activity of his reign, and was easily se
duced by the devotees of the more sensuous wor-
7

98 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
ship of Moab and Ammon, and of Phoenicia,
especially by the " strange women," of whom he
was such an easy victim. Doubtless some of the
exaggerations of unfriendly writers regarding the
sensual and idolatrous aspect of Solomon's life
have been retained in the record, and his seraglio
probably had no such extent as is there repre
sented. On the other hand, the record accepts to
the utmost the legend that attributed to him the
accumulated wisdom of the centuries that followed.
No doubt he attracted about him the active intel
lects of the time, the scholars and wits and poets,
such as they were, and the collection of national
proverbs, completed long after, was very likely be
gun in his day, if not by him. But in the study
of science and the acquisition of knowledge there
was not far to go. There is no ground for regard
ing the illustrative episode of the visit of the
Queen of Sheba as having any authenticity, though
the tradition may have been based upon some
actual incident. It pertains to the legendary
rather than the historical Solomon.

XVIII
INSUEEECTION AND SECESSION
Before the end of the reign which became so
glorious in the imagination of the race in after
times, there was a decided reaction against the
luxurious and expensive dynasty that had been set
up at Jerusalem. The life of the people away
from the vicinity of the capital was still half-pas
toral, and they shared in little, except the exac
tions, of Solomon's glory. A spirit of discontent
had evidently grown up. Those who held to the
pristine conceptions of Israel, and cherished the
germs of the prophetic spirit of a later day, viewed
with disfavor the growth of secular power. They
liked not the alliance with Egypt and the gather
ing of horses and chariots, or the association with
Tyre and Sidon, which brought the tokens of pride
and grandeur, and banished the simplicity of the
fathers. The pomp of the court, the sensual in
dulgence of the harem, the lapse into idolatry,
which put Chemosh and Milkom on a level with
Jehovah, set aglow the embers of a religious revolt.
The northern tribes, and especially the proud

100 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
and spirited Ephraimites, had always chafed under
the ascendancy of Judah. While the energies of
the nation were absorbed in the labor of construc
tion at Jerusalem, there seems to have been an
incipient insurrection among the men of Ephraim,
in which a vigorous and ambitious youth, known as
Jeroboam the son of Nebat, took the lead. Ahijah,
a prophet at Shiloh, in sympathy with the northern
spirit, encouraged him to seize the sovereignty of
that section, but the time was not yet ripe. Solo
mon discovered the movement and Jeroboam fled
to Egypt, the usual refuge of political offenders in
those times. But when Solomon died and the
kingdom fell to his weak and obstinate son, the
half-Ammonite, Eehoboam, the division between
north and south became complete and irreconcil
able. Jeroboam made haste out of his exile to
take the leadership of his people at Shechem, and to
demand a redress of grievances at the hands of the
new king. Under the advice of the younger heads
of his court the short-sighted Eehoboam met the
demand with defiance and threats of greater op
pression. The result was that Jeroboam became
king at Shechem, and the division of Israel and
Judah was definitely and finally established.
It is interesting to note just here an illustration
of the treatment of political changes by the annal
ists of a later day. It was natural to attribute the

INSURRECTION AND SECESSION 101
falling away from Solomon and his house to the
king's unfaithfulness to the God of Israel, and in
a sense it was due to that ; but the Lord was rep
resented as telling Solomon that the kingdom
would be rent from his son, all but one tribe,
which should be retained for David's sake.
Ahijah is also represented as declaring that the
Lord had said that he would rend the kingdom
from Solomon and give ten tribes to Jeroboam.
Then, when Eehoboam was diverted from his rash
purpose of trying to subject the northern tribes to
his power by force, it was the Lord who, through
the prophet Shemiah forbade the enterprise. These
statements were part of the " system " of the chron
iclers in explaining all events in the national his
tory as the results of Jehovah's judgments.
In following the fortunes of the two kingdoms
from this time until one, and then the other, dis
appeared from human history, we must remember
that the writers who have told their story for us
were of Judah only, and that they told it after the
tribes of Israel had been dispersed, and after
Judah had been through the experience of defeat
and captivity by foreign invaders. They regarded
past events from the point of view of their own
time, and explained them according to the concep
tion of theocratic rule which then prevailed.

XIX
THE TWO KINGDOMS
The great work of Israel, in its broader sense,
was achieved during the period of the kingdoms,
or from about the middle of the tenth to the mid
dle of the sixth century B.C. Intermediate dates
in this period are only approximately ascertained.
The division of the land into two realms, after the
death of Solomon, occurred, as nearly as the date
can be fixed, in 955 B.C. The time of the capture
of Samaria and the destruction of the Northern
Kingdom by the Assyrians is set down as 721 B.C.,
giving a period of 234 years for the concurrent
existence of the two nations. The destruction of
Jerusalem and the general deportation of the peo
ple by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar was
in 588 B.C., giving a further period of 133 years
to the monarchy of Judah, or 367 for the whole
period of independent national life after the date
first mentioned. According to the confused chro
nology of the Book of Kings, repeated, so far as
Judah is concerned, in the Book of Chronicles, the
reigns of the several kings were as follows : North-

THE TWO KINGDOMS 103
ern Kingdom— Jeroboam, 22 years ; Nadab, 2 ;
Baasha, 24; Elah, 2; Zimri, 7 days; Omri, 12
years ; Ahab, 22 ; Ahaziah, 2 ; Jehoram (or Joram),
12 ; Jehu, 28 ; Jehoahaz, 17 ; Joash (or Jehoash),
16; Jeroboam IL, 41; Zechariah, 6 months;
Shallum, one month ; Menahem, 10 years ; Peka-
liah, 2 years ; Pekah, 20, and Hoshea, 9— a total of
231 to 232 years. Kingdom of Judah — Eehoboam,
17 years ; Abijam, 3 ; Asa, 41 ; Jehoshaphat, 25 ;
Jehoram (or Joram), 8 ; Ahaziah, 1 ; Athaliah
(Queen Mother), 7 ; Joash (or Jehoash), 40 ; Ama
ziah, 29 ; Azariah (or Uzziah), 52 ; Jotham, 16 ;
Ahaz, 16 ; Hezekiah, 29 ; Manasseh, 55 ; Amon, 2 ;
Josiah, 31 ; Jehoahaz, 3 months ; Jehoiakim, 11
years ; Jehoiachin, 3 months ; Zedekiah, 11 years —
total, 394 to 395. As the fall of Samaria was said
to be in the sixth year of Hezekiah, this would
put that event 261 years after the accession of
Eehoboam and Jeroboam, a discrepancy of about
thirty years in the chronology of the two royal
lines, neither of which conforms to historical ac
curacy. The biblical record, made up after this period
of history was completed, by a Judean histori
ographer, and revised by a scribe of the second
temple long after the return from exile, naturally
shows a strong bias against the kings of Israel and
in favor of the Davidic dynasty, which was then

104 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
regarded as sacred and destined to restoration and
perpetuity. Judah, as a separate kingdom, started with the
great advantage of the possession of an established
capital on Mount Sion and a costly temple, which
was to become more and more a centre of wor
ship, and of patriotic, as well as religious, aspira
tion. It also had the prestige of the reigns of
David and Solomon, who were regarded as having
received a divine consecration. These conserva
tive influences restrained rebellious inclinations
and held the succession in a direct line from
father to son in the family of David, and also pro
duced a continuous growth of tradition, which
became sanctified through the teachings of priests
and prophets. Jeroboam began as a rebel against
the "Lord's anointed;" he ruled an independent
and high-spirited people, who had no capital or
strongholds, no single centre of worship, and no
direct sanction for a royal family. The inevitable
consequence was instability, and a succession of
revolutions, and, finally dissolution, when crush
ing defeat overtook the kingdom at the hands of
an irresistible foreign power.
While the later writers attributed all the ca
lamities and reverses of the northern nation to the
sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and to the
conduct of his successors in following his nefarious

THE TWO KINGDOMS 105
example, he was a much stronger and loftier char
acter than Eehoboam, the son of Solomon, or his
immediate successor. It was a matter of policy
on his part to establish places of worship at
Bethel and Dan in order to keep the people from
resorting to Jerusalem or the older fanes on the
borders of Judah ; and, though his recent sojourn
in Egypt and the spirit of the times led him to
set up golden calves as symbols of divinity, the
Jehovism of Judah was much on the same level,
and there was in both kingdoms a wide toleration
of other objects of worship than the national
deity. Jeroboam was no more false to the re
ligion of Israel than Eehoboam, and the latter was
much weaker as a ruler. There was during his
reign and that of his son a distinct retrogression,
and early in the former an Egyptian invasion,
which resulted in stripping the temple of its treas
ures, met with little resistance. There was a de
sultory warfare between the two kingdoms during
these twenty years.
Under the rule of Asa at Jerusalem, there was a
reaction toward greater vigor in secular affairs and
a higher spirit in the religious tendency, which
now began to take a definite direction. Little is
known of the prophets and priests of the time,
but they appear to have begun to assert the in
fluence which afterward became so great. At all

106 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
events, Asa was induced to do much toward sup
pressing the idolatrous worship and the pagan
practices that had grown up since Solomon's day.
Early in his reign there was a revolution in the
Northern Kingdom, headed by Baasha of the tribe
of Issachar, who exterminated the family of Jero
boam and made himself king, and then entered
upon an aggressive policy against Judah. Asa's
only resource for meeting this was to purchase an
alliance with the king of Syria with what was left
of the treasures of the temple. Benhadad of Syria
invaded the territory of Israel and turned the
scale in favor of Judah, and the material that
Baasha had collected for fortifications at Eamah
was used by Asa for the same purpose at Geba
and Mizpah. Baasha's reign was soon followed
by a conspiracy against his son, and a counter-
conspiracy, which brought in the rule of Omri.
With no recognized law of succession, or sense of
loyalty to a dynasty, revolution was sure to follow
the death of a strong king who had no son that
inherited his strong qualities, and it was a ques
tion of the success of the boldest and ablest con
spirator. The Omrides were by far the ablest of
the series of northern kings after the first Jero
boam. Asa of Judah had repelled an invasion of the
land from Africa, and then attacked some of his

THE TWO KINGDOMS 107
neighbors, from whom he extorted the means of
replenishing the temple treasures. He died of
gout at an advanced age, and was succeeded by his
son Jehoshaphat, who continued his work in even
a broader spirit, for he made peace with the kin
dred realm of the north and joined with its rulers
in a common defence against foreign enemies.
Omri saw the importance of having a capital
and building up the strength of the nation, as a
bulwark to an enduring dynasty. Jeroboam had
finally fixed upon Tirzah as the king's head-quar
ters, and it had been retained as such, but it was
a place of no defensive strength and of little im
portance. Omri obtained an elevated and com
manding situation and established the city of Sa
maria, and his son Ahab was able to carry on his
constructive work with success. These two sov
ereigns were, for the time, to the Northern King
dom much what David and Solomon had been to
Judah ; but circumstances were different with them,
and the subsequent fate of their family and their
nation consigned to unfriendly hands the writing
of their story. Their glory was effaced and a
cloud of obloquy cast upon their names. Ahab
especially was held up as the embodiment of all
vileness. Intent upon building up the national
power and prosperity of his realm, he formed an
alliance with Tyre and married a daughter of its

108 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
king, as Solomon had sought the alliance of Egypt
and married a daughter of the Pharaoh. Jezebel
encouraged the worship of Baal, which was that
of her country, and Ahab showed it an easy tol
erance, while retaining a formal allegiance to the
God of Israel. This brought upon the king the
reproach of the prophets of Jehovah, and upon
the queen their detestation, and furnished the main
reason why their lives were afterward portrayed
in such dark colors. But except in the minds of
the prophets there was at that time no wide dif
ference in the prevailing religions, and the same
tolerance had been displayed by Solomon at Je
rusalem a century before. Ahab never fell into
the sensualism and weakness of his Judean pro
totype, but was an energetic ruler and a brave
soldier to the end. Doubtless the spirited and
capable Jezebel inspired him with arbitrary no
tions of sovereignty, and spurred him to conduct
most reprehensible in the eyes of the prophets.
The curious legend of Elijah and Elisha touches
chiefly the reign of Ahab, and has little relation
to the Southern Kingdom. It represents Jezebel
as persecuting and slaying the prophets of Jeho
vah, and Elijah as slaughtering the prophets of
Baal, after defeating them in a prayer test, and
connects the " Tishbite," and the successor upon
whom his mantle fell, with the conspiracy that

THE TWO KINGDOMS 109
ended the dynasty of Omri. The historical ele
ment in this legend is slight and leaves it doubt
ful whether the two figures that appear in it are
not a double reflex of one actual person.
Ahab showed vigor and courage in resisting the
aggression of Benhadad of Syria, and it was in
this that his alliance with Jehoshaphat was of the
greatest service. The two kings agreed substan
tially in their religion, though the monarch of
Judah was on more friendly terms with the proph
ets, and was under no such adverse influence as
was exercised upon Ahab by the queen, and they
acted together most amicably. In fact their alli
ance was strengthened by the marriage of Jehosh-
aphat's son Joram and Ahab's sister, Athaliah
(unless the latter was Ahab's daughter, as some
times stated).
After Ahab had twice repelled an invasion of
his land by the king of Syria, Jehoshaphat joined
him in an aggressive campaign for the recovery of
Eamoth Gilead. There is a curious account of a
controversy of the prophets over this undertaking.
The attempt resulted in the death of Ahab and the
retreat of the king of Judah to his own capital.
Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, reigned in his stead,
but, losing his life as the result of an accident,
was succeeded in two years by a brother, Joram.
It was at this time that Moab developed power

110 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
under King Mesha, who achieved complete inde
pendence of Israel, and interesting fragments of
whose own account of his exploits have been un
earthed. Israel and Judah united, with the aid of
Edom, in a campaign to bring Moab into subjec
tion and failed. According to the account, King
Mesha, when pushed to extremity, terrorized his
enemies by sacrificing his oldest son on the wall
of Kir-hareseth. The explanation of the defeat
by the statement, " there was great wrath against
Israel," seems inadequate ; but the prophet Elisha
is represented as directing the campaign by divi
nation and fomenting trouble between the two
Hebrew kings, one of whom he despised for the
sins of his father and mother. This is more
nearly adequate, as an explanation.
Jehoshaphat was soon after succeeded by his son
Joram, or Jehoram, and the alliance of the two
kingdoms was strengthened by the connection of
their rulers by marriage. It was a period of weak
ness for Judah ; and Edom, which had long been
its tributary, achieved independence. Ahaziah,
who succeeded the short reign of Joram, joined
with Joram of Israel in another effort to recover
Eamoth Gilead from Syria, Hazael having become
king at Damascus. The effort was as disastrous
as the former one, and Joram retired to Samaria,
wounded, whither Ahaziah followed. Both speed-

THE TWO KINGDOMS \\\
ily became victims of the conspiracy of Jehu,
which put an end to the Onirid dynasty. The
legend of Ehjah and Elisha enters strangely into
the story of Jehu, who was represented as the in
strument of Jehovah in exterminating the off
spring of Ahab. His assassination of both kings,
his massacre of their famihes, and his treacherous
and merciless slaughter of the priests of Baal, are
set down to his credit and rewarded with the
throne for four generations ; but these merits
were offset by his allowing the places and forms
of worship to remain which had been established
by the rebel Jeroboam.
At Jerusalem Athaliah, who had some of the
qualities of Jezebel, and exercised a strong influ
ence upon the last two kings, her husband and
son, became queen-regent upon the death of the
latter and of his brothers at the hand of Jehu.
She ruled seven years, when a conspiracy, in
which the priests were concerned, led to her over
throw, that the direct line of David might be re
stored. The account, which is manifestly un
friendly because of her connection with the family
of Ahab, represents her as compassing the death
of the children of Ahaziah, except Joash, who was
concealed by the sister of Ahaziah until the con
spiracy was brought to a head by Jehoiada, the
priest. Athaliah was a capable and courageous

112 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
ruler, so far as appears, but the plot resulted in
her assassination and the proclamation of Joash
as king at the age of seven. This was a triumph
of the priests at Jerusalem, as the accession of
Jehu was a victory for the prophets at Samaria.
Joash devoted a part of his long reign to efforts
to put the temple in repair and to replenish its
treasures, but finding that the priests appropriated
the funds, as had been their wont, he took meas
ures to secure them by having the contributions
deposited in locked chests with an opening in the
top for the purpose. Though it is said in one ac
count that he did right in the eyes of the Lord all
his days, as instructed by the priests, in his mature
years he took such measures of repression as to
incur their hostility, as plainly appears in the later
account, which was the product of the priesthood
in the height of its development.
The power of Syria on the east of Israel and
Judah, was growing constantly more formidable,
while the terrible empire of Assyria, with its men
aces of conquest, began to lower on the far hori
zon. During the reign of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu,
the Syrian king, Hazael, overran the northern na
tion and was diverted from an attack upon Jerusa
lem only by being bought off by Joash with the
treasures of the temple, which were again depleted
for the purpose. Jehoahaz of Israel was sue-

THE TWO KINGDOMS 113
ceeded by his son Joash, or Jehoash, who made
head against the new king of Syria, Benhadad
III., and recovered the captured towns. Joash of
Judah fell a victim to a plot among his own ser
vants, and was assassinated, being succeeded by his
son Amaziah, who seems to have been ambitious
of military conquest. He brought Edom into sub
jection again, and for some reason not made evi
dent, sent a defiance to Joash of Israel. Eeceiv-
ing an evasive reply he marched against the
northern king and was defeated. Joash treated
him with relative magnanimity, but broke down a
part of the wall of Jerusalem, and carried away
such booty as he could get from the palace and
temple. The ruler at Samaria, from 825 to 775 B.C., was
Jeroboam IL, who undertook to restore and in
crease the importance of his realm. He made
some conquests over neighboring people, including
Moab, and there is a curious memorial of the cam
paign against that land in a tirade by the prophet
Jonah, which has been preserved in the Book of
Isaiah (chapters xv. and xvi.). The national pros
perity of the time, and the consequent wealth and
luxury, together with the tendency which these
begot to neglect the national worship and yield to
the fascinations of debasing foreign cults, are not
able as bringing forth the first of those terrible de-

114 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
nunciations and warnings that have come down to
us in the " prophecies." Amos, Joel, and Hosea
were the first heralds of that mighty force that was
to shape the destinies of Israel in the future.
During the reign of Jeroboam IL, at Samaria,
Amaziah of Judah had suffered a fate similar to
that of his father. A conspiracy in his own army
drove him from Jerusalem, and he was overtaken
and slain at Lachish, but he was " buried with his
fathers," and his son Ahaziah, or Uzziah, suc
ceeded him. The long reign of the latter was a
period of unusual prosperity for Judah, and some
recovery of lost possessions upon her borders.
The national religion remained much as it had
been since the days of Asa, and there was no such
agitation as had begun in the north. The king
seems, like his grandfather, to have incurred the
ill-will of the temple priests, and is represented in
their version of his reign as having been smitten
with leprosy in consequence of a conflict with them
over the right to burn incense.
After the death of Jeroboam the strength of the
Northern Kingdom began to decline, and the men
ace from the far east that hung over all the lands
between the upper Euphrates and the sea, grew
more terrible. Jeroboam's son, Zechariah, was
assassinated at Samaria by Shallum, who speedily
became the victim of another plot, headed by

THE TWO KINGDOMS 115
Menahem, at Tirzah. The latter held the throne
for several years, but showed more brutality than
capacity for government.
It was about 765 B.C. that the great military
despotism of Assyria began to make itself keenly
felt near the borders of Israel. Nineveh at this
time overshadowed Babylon, and Assyria was the
rival power to Egypt in the aggressive spirit of
conquest. Policy dictated a union of the Semitic
nations for common defence ; but, though lack of
union meant almost certain destruction, the proph
ets, who became a powerful political factor, always
inveighed against joining with the "heathen" —
those having alien gods — whether of Syria or Phoe
nicia, and denounced every suggestion of alliance
with Egypt, the only power able to cope with their
enemies, as a crime against Jehovah. Their plea
was always for submission to their God and reli
ance upon him, and through that policy they helped
to destroy then: nation, but in so doing they helped
also to fulfil the real mission of their race.
The first invasion of Israel by an Assyrian force
remains in obscurity, and no such king as Pul, to
whom Menahem is said to have paid a ransom,
exacted from the men of wealth, can be identified.
The common assumption that the name was ap
plied to Tiglath-pileser is certainly not well
founded. It may have belonged to some com-

116 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
mander of an expedition, not a king ; but there is
no doubt that the country was filled with dread of
the invader. Menahem was succeeded by his son,
but in two years there was one of the plots, so
common in that kingdom, for overthrowing the
ruler, and he was slain by Pekah, a military offi
cer, who seized the throne. Not far from this
time Jotham succeeded Uzziah in Judah and pur
sued the mild course of his predecessors in cher
ishing the temple, and at the same time tolerating
the mixed worship of the "high places" through
out the land. Syria and Israel formed an alli
ance for defence against Assyria, but unwisely
used it also for attack upon Judah. What
mainly held the great eastern empire back was its
contest with Egypt, but as the latter had friendly
relations with the cities of Phoenicia, on or near
the Mediterranean, it increased the peril of the
feeble nations that were interposed between these
aggressive powers. It was the pressure of this sit
uation which, more and more, excited the alarm
and inspired the menaces and warnings of the clear-
eyed prophets, whose sole idea of escape, however,
was submission to the will of Jehovah and reli
ance upon his power. The chief voice raised at
this stage of the coming crisis was that of Hosea.
Under Ahaz, son and successor of Jotham, there
was a distinct retrogression of the kingdom of

THE TWO KINGDOMS 117
Judah, material and religious. The tolerance
shown to the worship of Baal, Ashteroth (Astarte),
and other foreign deities, was a menace to the as
cendancy of the national God. This and the perils
from external force were Avhat first raised the
wrathful and warning voice of Isaiah. Eezin of
Damascus and Pekah of Samaria joined hands
against Ahaz of Jerusalem, with the evident in
tent of forcing Judah into a combination for re
sisting Assyria ; but, against the advice of Isaiah
and without his knowledge, Ahaz made a secret
league with Tiglath-pileser, the king at Nineveh,
and stripped the temple and the palace of their
treasures once more to purchase his protection.
Whether or not this incited the attack upon
Damascus, and afterward upon Samaria, it re
lieved Judah from immediate clanger. At Damas
cus Ahaz paid homage in person to the Assyrian
monarch, and further excited the wrath of the
prophets and of the priests of a later time by hav
ing an altar which he saw there copied at Jeru
salem. Its ally defeated, its provinces beyond the
Jordan overrun, terror and confusion at its capital,
the Northern Kingdom entered upon the period of
its agony and final dissolution, without the sym
pathy of its brother Judah. Pekah was assas
sinated, to give the throne to the last king of
Israel, Hoshea, who had a reign of nine years, of

118 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
which the last three were passed in the horrors
of a siege at Samaria.
Hezekiah had come to the throne at Jerusalem,
and Shalmaneser had succeeded Tiglath-pileser as
king of Assyria, and as emperor over all its tribu
taries. Hoshea made a formal submission to him,
but secretly sought an alliance with Egypt to get
rid of the humiliating yoke. This, with an upris
ing on the Phcenician side, brought the wrath of
the Assyrian monarch upon Ephraim, and siege
was laid to Samaria on its commanding height.
It took three years to reduce it, but Avhen it fell
the kingdom of Joseph was no more. As usual
in Asiatic conquests of the time, there was a trans
portation of inhabitants to other territory be
longing to the invader, and a migration of colonists
to the vacated lands. The tribes of Israel were
dispersed forever, and Judah was shut up in its
little realm about the " holy city " to aAvait the
destruction of its own secular power, and the
crushing out of its life as a nation, while it wrought,
all unconsciously, a higher mission than that con
signed to great empires. What to humanity to
day is Nineveh or Babylon, or the palaces of the
Pharaohs, compared to that little capital which
displaced the Jebusites' stronghold on Mount Sion,
where Melchisedek had been king of Salem and
priest of the Most High God !

XX
FIEST WEITTEN LITEEATUEE
This hasty sketch of the two kingdoms has been
made in order to furnish the historical background
in outline of the remarkable literary efflorescence
of this period of nearly two centuries and a half.
Up to the time of the division of the kingdom
after the death of Solomon, there was substan
tially no literature in Avritten form. The HebreAv
alphabet had come into use from Phoenicia during
the era of the later Judges. When Samuel in
vested Saul with royalty at Mizpah, he is said to
have " told the people the manner of the king
dom, and wrote it in a book." This is a later
statement, but, if it is authentic, it may indicate
the beginning of a bald register of names and
events, which developed into the genealogies and
records of the kings, that became the chief material
of the later annals. It is possible that some of the
songs and hymns included in the psalms, and some
of the wise sayings of the Book of Proverbs were
put in writing in the time of David and Solomon.
Of this there is no evidence, but it is not improbable.

120 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
The extent to which writing Avas then used
must have been extremely limited, but there was
a great body of tradition, of oral literature, trans
mitted from generation to generation in an in
creasing and varying volume ; in dim memories
of the early migrations, legends of the ancestors,
leaders, and heroes of the race ; stories of perils,
adventures, and triumphs, and of the miraculous
doings of Jehovah in behalf of his chosen people.
It was analogous to the material, Avhich not far
from the same time filled the storehouse of the
first literature of the Aryan race, the epics of
Homer, the homilies of Hesiod, the history of
Herodotus. The stirring experiences which prim
itive people carried in memory and related by
Avord of mouth Avere heightened and colored in
the telling, and rhythmic form and measured tones
aided in their transmission. As the steady march
or the dactylic measure, the frequent recurrence
of epithets and identical verses, helped to preserve
the Homeric poems before they were Avritten doAvn,
so the parallelism of the HebreAv chants was at
first a device to aid the memory.
The Ephraimites were ahvays characterized by
a certain superiority of mental activity and energy,
and it was in the Northern Kingdom that the ear
liest systematic literary development began. Its
first product was a collection of legends of the

FIRST WRITTEN LITERA TURE 121
patriarchs. The author's name is lost, and the
Avork itself was discarded when subsequent writers
had used such parts of it as suited their purposes,
but much of the substance, mingled with other
material, survives in the Book of Genesis, and
forms the most alluring portions of its narrative.
It cannot be absolutely detached, and it is not
possible to ascertain clearly the later touches, but
of its general character and aim there is no doubt.
Jeroboam had been recalled from exile in Egypt,
where he had been in high favor with the ruling-
family. He may have brought back traditions
of the sojourn of his race upon the borders
of that land, and he doubtless gathered much of
the material for the fascinating legend of Joseph,
who was regarded as the ancestor of his tribe, and
perhaps his own prototype. Jeroboam set up his
first capital at Shechem, which the legend sancti
fied as the burial-place of Joseph, and which was
near the oldest sanctuary of Israel at Shiloh. His
chief place of worship he established at Bethel,
where the ancient fane of Luz had been time out
of mind, and that became glorified with the legend
of Jacob. There remained in the popular mind,
or at least in the mind of the first writer of Israel's
legends, the most striking features of the old
Babylonian and Assyrian myths and fables, and
its story of the migration of Abraham from Ur of

122 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the Chaldees ; but most of the Abraham legend
was a later development, and it was expanded and
adapted when the traditions of the two branches
of the Hebrew family were blended by later hands.
In its earliest form Abraham appears especially
as the ancestor of the southern people and closely
associated Avith Hebron, their first capital and the
seat of their chief shrine before the building of the
temple. The Isaac legend is perhaps the oldest
of all, and was confined to the vicinity of Beer
sheba, and when Abraham was made the putative
ancestor of the whole nation, as well as of Arabia
and Edom, and made to wander over the future
possessions of his progeny even to the borders of
Egypt, the story of his sojourn at Beer-sheba and
his relations with the king of Gerar Avas made out
of the material of the older tale. The original le
gends of the patriarchs also derive color here and
there from the mythology of Phoenicia, a close
neighbor of Ephraim.
At this time the characteristics of the tribes
were settled, and something was known, and more
imagined, of their separate and their common his
tory. The names of some of them were derived
from heathen deities, those of others from pecu
liarities of the territory which they occupied, and
still others from the qualities of the people. Ben
jamin was never an ethnic division, but a group of

FIRST WRITTEN LITERATURE 123
bold warriors, skilled in the use of the boAv and
sling. It Avas formed at the time of the invasion
of Canaan, and it became a separate community
by having a place allotted to it in the partition of
the conquered lands. Its name, which means left-
handed, or son of the left hand, was derived from
their manner of using the sling. Levi was mere
ly the aggregation of the ministers of the worship
of Jehovah, the name and function being derived
from Egypt, and it was counted as a tribe to be
supported by the others. Out of these names and
characteristics were created the personifications
called the sons of Jacob, or Israel. The original
collection of patriarchal legends was strongly
marked by the spirit of hostility then existing
betAveen the two kingdoms. Joseph was greatly
exalted and glorified, while Judah Avas degraded,
and in the account of the latter's domestic re
lations there was apparently a bitter satire on the
family of David. In spite of the " harmoniz
ing " of later Avriters, this characteristic is still
conspicuous. At about the same time, and also in the North
ern Kingdom, appeared another collection of pop
ular traditions and legends of a wholly different
character, reduced to writing for the first time.
Whether the " Wars of Jehovah " and the " Book
of Jasher " were different titles for the same

124 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
collection, designations of different parts of that
collection, or entirely separate Avorks, is not cer
tain ; but the material, mingled of prose and rude
verse, related to the same series of events. It
covered the period from the time the conquest of
the " promised land " Avas determined upon to the
death of Saul, and it contained stories of the ex
ploits and adventures of that long and eventful
episode in the life of Israel. The narrative parts
were interspersed with songs of triumph and pop
ular chants, celebrating occurrences that stirred
the blood beyond the expression of prosaic lan
guage, and these had been carried in the popular
memory for generations.
Like all primitive literature that has strength
enough to live, such of the material of this collec
tion as has survived the ravages of compilers and
" harmonizers " contains more of the fragrance of
the soil, the color of the time, and the blood and
spirit of the people to Avhich it relates, than any
genius can infuse into the periods of formal his
tory. It is doubtful if Moses appeared even as
a leader in these heroic recitals, and it is almost
certain that nothing was known of him as a law
giver when they were written down. His legend
in that character was a later production, and grew
out of the development of the law in after-time.
There is some question even whether the name of

FIRST WRITTEN LITERATURE 125
Joshua figured at all in the " Wars of Jehovah,"
or the " Book of Jasher." In the narrative subse
quently made up it Avas associated with events and
deeds scattered over a long period of time, but
grouped as if consecutive, and it was used as a sin
gle personification of the leaders of the invasion
and conquest.

XXI
THE FIEST SACEED HISTOEY
Neither in the collection of legends of the
patriarchs, nor in that of the legends relating to
the wars of the conquest, was there any definite
moral or religious purpose. The one accounted
for the origin of the tribes by tracing them to an
cestors bearing their names, and the other told of
the exploits of the conquerors and of the heroes of
the infant nation. Jehovah was the God of Israel,
as Chemosh was the god of Moab, and Baal the
god of Ammon and other Semitic peoples, and
there was no Avide difference in the prevalent con
ception of their attributes, or the manner of their
worship, down to the time of Jeroboam and Eeho
boam. But in the century following that time
there was a remarkable advance. In the schools
or conventicles of Nebiim, or prophets, of which
intimations appear in the story of Samuel, closely
associated with the primitive sanctuary at Shiloh,
and still stronger intimations in the story of Eli
jah and Elisha, when the persecutions of Jeze
bel, under the easy tolerance of Ahab, drove them

THE FIRST SACRED HISTORY 127
into obscure retreats, a wonderful ferment was go
ing on, especially in the Northern Kingdom. The
prophets, brooding over the traditions of the past,
and reverting to the simpler and purer life of the
pastoral days, conceived loftier ideas of their
Deity and of his relation to the people of Israel.
They nourished a pride in their race and a faith
in its destiny which led them vaguely to invest
him with the attributes of a God of the universe.
To bind the people in subjection to Jehovah,
and to resist the tendency to wander off under the
allurements of gods less exacting, they saw the need
of some definite prescription of rules of conduct
and of obedience, emanating from the authority of
the Deity himself, and having the most solemn and
sacred sanction. The grand traditions of the race,
still in a large measure plastic and floating, fur
nished the chief material for their reflections upon
the past, while they brooded over the needs of the
present and the hopes of the future. There was
Abraham, hitherto represented as the father of
their race, wandering from Mesopotamia and tak
ing possession of the land which was to be the in
heritance of his progeny! Was it not Jehovah
that brought him hither, and did he not promise
both the multitudinous progeny and the goodly in
heritance ? Did he not repeat the covenant with
Jacob on the sacred height of Bethel ?

128 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
When, in the time of the great famine, the chil
dren of Israel took refuge in Egypt, where one of
them had become an exalted personage, and there
under a change of dynasty fell into a galling bond
age, was it not Jehovah that delivered them with
a mighty hand ? The shadowy traditions of their
great leader, Moses, suggested him as fhe " Man
of God," the instrument of deliverance in the hands
of a higher poAver. It Avas indeed Jehovah that
had wrought that great deliverance, and brought
his people through trials and perils to the prom
ised land, and did he not renew his covenant with
the people in the wilderness, and bind them to
obedience in return for what he had done for
th em ?
Here was the material out of which to work the
first theology with a spiritual vitality that the
Avorld ever knew. It was the beginning of the the
ology that lives in the JeAvish and Christian faiths
of to-day. It was after the triumph of the pro
phetic influence in the North under Jehu that,
from a source now unknoAAm, sprang the first of
the sacred books of the Hebrews. It formed an
important part of the material out of which the
"Books of Moses " were wrought, and is known to
critics as the " Jehovist document " of the compil
ers of those books, on account of the name applied
throughout to the Deity by the Avriter. It em-

THE FIRST SACRED HISTORY 129
bodied the first Torah, or statement of laws, and
doubtless its main purpose was to formulate the
rules of conduct therein contained, accompanying
them with a relation of events and with explana
tions that would most strongly impress their sa
credness and binding character upon the minds of
the people. But it also contained the first attempt
to account for the origin of the world and of the
human race, as well as of the Hebrew people, and
its dominant purpose was to magnify and exalt the
HebreAV God above all other gods.
The account of the creation, of the Garden of
Eden, and of the deluge that swept away the first
perverse product of the Almighty's hand, was made
up from fragments of Babylonian myths, carried
in popular tradition for ages. But the ancient
material was transmuted by the Semitic genius.
This forgotten writer of the ninth century before
the Christian era had a certain profound philoso
phy. He took a sombre view of the early world.
To him we owe the germ of the stern doctrine of
original sin and the tendency of all mankind to
evil, and it was he that drew with the heaviest
strokes the awful lineaments of Jehovah as a God
of wrath and of vengeance. The first offspring of
the original human couple fiercely murdered his
gentle brother, and peopled the earth with a race
of which only one family deserved to survive the

130 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
flood — for the Jehovist knew nothing of Seth. In
his broad sketch of the antediluvian generations
he drew from both Babylonian and Phoenician
fable, and names appear that belong to the mythi
cal Chaldean dynasties. Memory of the colossal
temple of Bel at Borsippa, unfinished for ages,
suggested the story of the tower, illustrating at
once the punishment of human pride and the con
fusion of tongues.
The legends of the patriarchs were in the Avrit-
er's hands, and he made free use of them, but his
efforts to combine different traditions sometimes
had an incongruous result. Two versions of the
same incident are often left without a reconcilia
tion of differences, or an obliteration of contradic
tions. A distinctly religious character is given to
Abraham, with whom the first covenant or agree
ment is made, which is to bind his offspring in de
votion to Jehovah. His migration from the land
of the Chaldees has a divine purpose. It was he
Avho first consecrated the holy places of the na
tion by erecting altars. The process of prefer
ring the ancestral tribes to the other progeny of
Abraham, as the turning of Ishmael into the wil
derness, and the supplanting of Edom by Israel,
is told with a mythological significance unusual
with Semitic writers.
But the greatest product of the pen of the Jehov-

THE FIRST SACRED HISTORY 131
ist was Moses as the laAv-giver. He brought the
vague outlines of the legendary leader of the de
liverance into the light, and told of the signs and
Avonders which attended the escape from bondage,
making impotent the poAver of Pharaoh in compar
ison with that of Israel's God. And he was the
first to represent the solemn revelation of the com
mands of Jehovah, the statutes and laws of the
Almighty, delivered by the mouth of Moses in the
awful solitude about Mount Sinai, when the fugi
tives first found relief from the dread of pursuit
but were still compassed about with perils.
It was more than five hundred years since the
deliverance and that nightmare of Israel's passage
through the wilderness, and for more than half that
period there had been no written language and no
memorials save the heap of stones, or Gilgal, the
pillar set up in the earth or the rude altar, to mark
events or experiences of unusual import. What tra
dition there may have been of storm and darkness
upon the mountain, of thunders and of lightnings,
which were in old clays regarded as the terrific evi
dences of divine presence, we know not. But we
do know with what poAver this writer made use of
the possibilities of the situation in framing the
scene for the promulgation of his code of laws, the
substance of which is found in the Book of Exodus,
but which did not include what is known as the

132 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
decalogue. The later part of his narrative is drawn
largely from the " Wars of Jehovah," helped out
with old traditions and colored with the larger con
ception of Jehovah's relation to his people, which
was beginning to prevail.

XXII
THE ELOHIST VEESION
While the Southern Kingdom was somewhat
more tardy in developing literary activity it was,
owing to its possession of the temple and a grow
ing priesthood, and to the relatively orthodox
spirit of its successive rulers, rather more ad
vanced and settled in its religious ideas. It pos
sessed substantially the same traditions as the
northern realm, and the practice had been adopt
ed, amid the established officialism of the palace
and temple, of keeping some sort of records. In
these had been collected genealogies and historical
and geographical details relating to the past, ex
tracted from the fluctuating stream of tradition.
There, too, the germs of a theology had started,
which were destined to unite with those of the
North in a prodigious growth.
It was twenty or thirty years after the appear
ance of the production referred to in the preceding
chapter, somewhere about 825 B.C., that a writer
of the temple coterie at Jerusalem, whose name is
likewise unknown, put forth a parallel account of

13-1 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the origin of the world and its people, and of the
compact which bound the Hebrews to submission
to their God. It is known to critics as the "Elo
hist document " in the material of the Pentateuch,
because of its use of Elohim for the Deity until the
announcement of the name of Jahwe, or Jehovah,
by Moses as that of the national God.
The account of the creation, though drawn from
the same Chaldaic source, has significant points
of difference from that of the northern writer. It
introduced the six days period, as the sanction for
the Sabbath. It knows nothing of the Garden of
Eden and the fall of man, or of Cain and Abel.
Seth is the only son of Adam, and for his descend
ants much the same genealogy is given as is given
by the Jehovist for the family of Cain, and the
names in both are drawn from Chaldean and Phce
nician mythology. The account of the deluge and
of Noah was derived from a common source by the
two writers, but differently used, the Elohist repre
senting a compact Avith the survivor of the flood
against another destruction of the race, of which
the rainbow was the visible pledge. The rite of
circumcision was attributed to Abraham as the
seal of the covenant with him. The practice was
older and of uncertain origin, and had no religious
significance, except among the Hebrews, Avho laid
great stress upon it in later times as the distinc-

THE ELOHIST VERSION 135
tive badge of their race and their faith. There
were other characteristics of this document derived
from the Judean point of view, among which was
the entire absence of the story of Jacob's sons.
The writer had neither the lurid imagination
nor the sombre philosophy of the Jehovist. There
was an infantile sort of science in his cosmog
ony; he was fond of using his supply of names
in genealogies and references to places, and his
view of the Deity was less perturbed. But his
main purpose was the same, to represent the cov
enants by which Israel was bound to the deepest
obligation of submission and obedience to its God,
and to set forth the rules of conduct that emanated
from his command. The common tradition of the
Egyptian deliverance, the leadership of Moses,
the trials of the wilderness, and the conquest of
Canaan, were used in less detail than by the north
ern writer, but for a hke purpose. The great dis
tinction of the statement of the divine commands
in the Elohist document was the embodiment
therein of what was afterwards designated as the
" Ten Words," or sayings, which have been re
garded by a large part of the world for ages as con
taining the essence of all the law regarding moral
and religious conduct.
Whether tradition had brought down any part
of them through six centuries as utterances of

136 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Moses is doubtful. Every indication favors a be
hef that, though their substance may be found in
part in the old Egyptian " Book of the Dead," they
had their origin in the purlieus of the temple at
Jerusalem, near the end of the ninth century B.C.
The sublime conception of the Deity as the God of
all mankind and of the universe, which was to be
wrought out by the great teachers of later ages,
was fermenting in the minds of the prophets of
Samaria under Jehu, and of the priests of Jeru
salem under Joash, when they conjured up the
terrors of Mount Sinai and made the legendary
leader of the oxodus the spokesman of the Al
mighty in proclaiming his decrees to the Avorld.

XXIII
THE ANCIENT PEOPHETS
It was during this period of the two kingdoms
that the Nabi, or prophet, began to play a neAv
and most important part in the life of Israel.
The Nabi first appeared as a kind of sorcerer, and
later as a seer, to whom great personal wisdom or
clairvoyant powers were attributed. The person
age known as Deborah — not a real name — Avho
roused the northern tribes to resisting Jabin, the
Canaanite king of Hazor, and was said to have
" judged Israel," is also spoken of as a prophetess,
sitting under a palm-tree delivering oracles to the
people. Samuel is represented in a varied charac
ter, one being that of a seer, who was to be con
sulted as to the whereabouts of lost cattle, as well
as matters of graver import. He appears in a
political r8le as the chief agent in setting up the
first king, and is said not only to have invested
Saul with royalty, but afterward to have with
drawn his counsel and support, and to have
anointed his successor long in advance of the
change of dynasty. These representations were

138 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
probably due to the later development of the pro
phetic function. The real Samuel is only vaguely
outlined in the mist of tradition, and the clearest
strokes in the portrayal are those of late writers
Avho were creating a character rather than describ
ing one.
David had rather timorous advisers who were
called prophets, but when one of them had oc
casion to convey a severe rebuke he felt con
strained to go about it with a parable, and lead
the king to condemn himself. These counsellors
had little influence with the first Judean king,
and apparently none with the second, who was
much absorbed in mundane affairs and in worldly
ways of advancing them. A prophet of the old
sanctuary of Shiloh, in Ephraim, appears as the
chief instigator of the rebellion against Solomon
and the rupture of the nation, which followed the
death of the latter, and plays the part of a Samuel
to Jeroboam when he returns from exile in Egypt
to take the throne of the Northern Kingdom. The
lives of the prophets in the adverse days of Omri
and Ahab were shrouded in mystery and they be
came legendary characters. The stories told of
them in after time were mingled with fable and
miraculous doings that almost exclude them from
the field of reality. Nothing of the kind is as
sociated with those who come out into the light of

THE ANCIENT PROPHETS 139
histoiw. The most conspicuous instance of the
legendary prophet is Elijah, and Elisha is only
partly detached from the mist that surrounds the
two imposing figures. The traditions which con
nected the latter with the destruction of the house
of Ahab and the seizure of the throne at Samaria
by Jehu, and with the expedition of the allied
kings of Judah, Israel, and Syria against Mesha of
Moab, were probably historical.
It was about the time of Jeroboam IL, when the
omens of danger from the great empires of the
Tigris and Euphrates began to appear, that the
prophets first raised those voices of warning and
admonition that have resounded ever since. They
began then to exercise an influence that was de
structive of secular power and of national life,
but creative of a power and of a life that were to
shape in no small measure the destinies of nations
and empires in after time. For the first time a
strong ethical element appeared in the function of
the prophet, and gave to utterances applied to the
situation of an ancient people an enduring value
that has preserved them to all generations. For
the first time the doctrine of righteousness was
taught in clear and uncompromising tones, and the
germs of moral conviction were stirred to a growth
that was to interlace human society with indestruct
ible and ever-lengthening and strengthening fibres.

140 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
The chief function of the prophet for two cen
turies was political, in the sense that it affected the
life and destiny of the nation; but the political
reasoning of the greatest of them was pervaded by
a fallacy that was fatal to the national life. In
their denunciation of the iniquities of the time,
and in their appeals to the sense of right, in their
warnings and promises as to the consequences of
conduct upon one fundamental line or another,
they were everlastingly sound, and promulgated
principles on which alone any national life can
permanently endure. But they preached not only
an absolute moral submission to what they con
ceived to be the will and assumed to be the com
mands of Jehovah, but an absolute dependence
upon the power of Jehovah to deliver or defend
the people from their enemies, and to build up
their strength as a nation. They denounced re
liance upon numbers and material resources, and
condemned any alliance with other earthly powers.
Israel was doomed as a nation to be swept away
and dispersed by the successive waves of over-
Avhelming power from Assyria, from Babylonia,
from Persia, from Greece, from Eome, but if it had
obeyed the voice of the prophets, and put away all
its sins, and relied upon Jehovah for salvation,
would the floods set in motion by the forces then
working in the human race have been stayed?

THE ANCIENT PROPHETS 141
Is it not more rational to put the divine impulse
back of all these forces than to confine it to the
two petty kingdoms of Palestine and direct it
from the mouths of Israel's theocratic champions ?
At any rate, human events took their course
through human agencies then, as ever since, what
ever we may believe of the power behind them.

XXIV
THE EAELIEST "PEOPHECIES"
Probably the first of the utterances of the
prophets to be preserved in writing is the tirade
against Moab contained in chapters xv. and xvi.
of the Book of Isaiah. The vaticinations put
in the mouth of Balaam, though connected in
the narrative with earlier events, were a later pro
duction, as the language and poetical structure
clearly show. They represent one form of pro
phetic utterance, approaching the rhythmical con
struction of such compositions as the so-called
blessings of Jacob and of Moses, which belong to
the same literary period. In general the prophets
whose productions have come down to us were
declaimers rather than writers, and their style
was usually calculated to excite and to inflame.
It had a thrilling cadence, which often rose into a
rhythmical swing and came doAvn in ringing blows
like a hammer. They sometimes resorted to de
vices for attracting attention which Avere more ef
fective than dignified, and used language that was
more forcible than elegant. No Avriters or speakers

THE EARLIEST "PROPHECIES" 143
ever aimed more at effect, and doubtless effect is
what writing and speaking are for.
The first of these clarion voices was raised in
the Northern Kingdom about 800 B.C. by Amos,
the rude herdsman of Tekoa. The material pros
perity under Jeroboam II. had produced pride and
luxury, with the oppression of the poor by the
rich and lack of integrity in the councils of the
rulers. Depredations were common on the bor
ders, the slave-trade flourished, and idolatrous
worship prevailed, with little distinction of gods.
Though himself of the kingdom of Judah, this
fervid champion of Jehovah found the field for his
fierce denunciations and his impressive warnings
in the northern realm, where a priest at Bethel
charged him with seeking to incite insurrection.
What is specially to be noted here is the clear
ness Avith which the higher conception of Jehovah
as a universal God of justice appears, the scorn
of sacrifices and ceremonies that is expressed, and
the first menaces of destruction of the nation for
its sins, accompanied by faith in its ultimate res
toration and glory. The vision of Amos did not
extend beyond the neighboring nations and those
long associated with the history of his people.
He apparently did not discern the impending
shadoAV of Assyria, but his prescience told him
that the course Israel was pursuing meant de-

144 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
struction, because Jehovah was the God of right
eousness. Of about the same time and in much
the same tone is the " prophecy " which bears the
name of " Joel," a name that is probably sym
bolical, like that of " Obadiah," " servant of
Jehovah." What is called the vision of Obadiah,
and another fragment embedded in the Book of
Zechariah as chapter ix., are generally credited
to this same period.
A generation later, when Israel was giving way
before the irresistible pressure of Assyria, Hosea
took up the strain of the herdsman of Tekoa, but
in still more threatening tones. He painted the
iniquities and dangers of the time in the darkest
colors and portrayed the relations of the people to
Jehovah in bold figures of speech. He was the
herald of the downfall of Ephraim and of the dis
asters of Judah, but he had faith in the ultimate
triumph of united Israel.

xxv
THE GEEAT ISAIAH
While the condition of affairs in the Northern
Kingdom and the events which were hastening
toward its destruction called forth these alarming
and warning voices, there was a more quiescent
spirit in Judah. So far as there was what may be
called an ecclesiastical influence in the govern
ment, it had been exercised by the priests, and
the kings were mildly favorable to the national
religion centred at Jerusalem, though still tolerant
of other worship in the " high places." But there
seems to have been a growing school of the pro
phetic spirit in the purlieus of the temple, which
was destined to give the fullest and highest utter
ance to the new theology. In this was nourished
the greatest genius of Hebrew literature and of the
Hebrew faith, the prophet Isaiah. He, more than
any other, was the creator of Judaism, and in its
bosom he planted the seeds of Christianity.
Clear-sighted and ardent, master of the knowl
edge of his time and of the resources of his
language, he displayed a poAver of expression un-
10

146 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
excelled in any literature. The unplastic and in
flexible Hebrew tongue he Avrought to a tension
and a power of vibration that has made it ring
through the ages. He exalted still higher the
conception of Jehovah, as not only the God of
Israel, but as the power that controlled the des
tinies of all nations, and he mingled in the char
acter for the first time the tender qualities of the
father of humanity, Avhich Avere to become pre
dominant in the teachings of Jesus.
Though the introductory note of a compiler
makes the activity of Isaiah begin under Uzziah,
it seems to have been awakened during the reign
of Ahaz, Avho had relapsed from the comparative
fidelity of his fathers, and under whose reign idol
atry flourished and corruption pervaded society
and enfeebled the government. There was noth
ing exceptional in Isaiah's claiming to speak by
direct inspiration of Jehovah, and using devices
to enforce the divine sanction of his utterances.
Most of the prophets did that, even those who
were denounced as false and overborne by the
dominant element. The one that prevailed was
accepted as true, and the discomfited was by his
discomfiture proved to be false.
The earliest of Isaiah's productions that have
come doAvn to us are fervid denunciations of the
iniquities of the time of Ahaz, of wealth, pride,

THE GREAT ISAIAH 147
luxury, and the vainglory of material prosperity,
which always excited the ire of these stern Puri
tans of Israel. He dwelt with a certain pathos
upon what Jehovah had done for his people, upon
their manifold perversities toward him, and upon
the terrible consequences of their conduct, but
always he saAV Avith unswerving faith the saving of
a purified remnant, the restoration of power and
glory at Jerusalem, under the rule of the offspring
of David.
When, a few years before the fall of Samaria,
Pekah of Israel and Eezin of Syria were threaten
ing Judah, and the menace of Assyria was impend
ing over them, Isaiah began to assume a role that
was more and more political, and constantly di
rected by the theocratic spirit. He threatened
Ephraim and Damascus with ruin, and attempted
to dissuade Ahaz from any parleying with the
king of Assyria. He promised deliverance at the
hand of Jehovah, and the triumph of Sion in the
days to come. The prophet seemed almost to
gloat over the fate of Samaria, and predicted the
destruction of Tyre and the subjection of Assyria
and Egypt. His visions in that regard were never
fulfilled, and those Avhich related to his own land
were equally far from the realization of Avhich he
and the other prophets dreamed. Contemporary
Avith this part of Isaiah's career, and associated

148 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
with it, was that of Micah, who displayed the same
ardent spirit.
A few years before the fall of Samaria Hezekiah
had come to the throne of Judah, but at the begin
ning of his reign there Avas no material change
from the policy of his father. But the tremendous
crisis of the Northern Kingdom had a far-reaching
effect. During the long siege there was a feverish
apprehension that the next sweep of the Assyrian
host would be over the hills and plains of Judah.
The effort of the two tireless prophets was rather
to fan than to allay this fear. Assyria was the
scourge of the Almighty, employed to punish Is
rael for its sins, and the only way to avert from
Jerusalem the fate of Samaria was to bow to the
will of Jehovah and rely upon him for safety.
There was a practical side to this policy, which
meant submission to the nominal sovereignty of
the conquering empire of the East.
Hezekiah continued to pay tribute to the king
of Assyria, and the conquests AA'hich Sargon, who
had become the successor of Shalmanesar, made
upon the borders of his realm accrued to the ad
vantage of the King of Judah. Some of the cities
that had belonged to the Northern nation were
added to his domain, and gains were made
on the west from the Philistines. There Avas a
party at Jerusalem that favored resistance to the

THE GREAT ISAIAH 149
Assyrian domination and alliance with Egypt, at
the head of which was Shebna, one of the king's
officers. Against this policy Isaiah inveighed
with all his force, and with such effect that Shebna
was superseded by the candidate of the party of
submission, which was another political triumph
for the prophets, who thereby gained an almost
complete ascendancy over the king.

XXVI
EELIGIOUS AND LITEEAEY ACTIVITY
For some years the Assyrian domination Avas
little felt, except as a protection, and there Avas a
period of prosperity and progress. The govern
ment was more effectively organized, the military
system was strengthened, and great improvements
were made at Jerusalem. The temple and its
service were rehabilitated to some extent, but it
was still little more than a royal chapel. The
priesthood was a subordinate factor, while the in
fluence of the prophets was predominant. Under
that influence and the impress of recent events a
great advance was made in the religious concep
tions of the time. Jehovah absorbed the attributes
of Elohim more and more, and expanded into the
God of the Universe, avIio used the nations of the
earth to work out his own purposes. But Israel
was the peculiar object of his affection and care,
and it was through Israel that his purposes were
to be effected. By his chastisements it was to be
purged ; a purified remnant would constitute the
nation under a king of the house of David, Avho

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY ACTIVITY 151
would reign in justice and peace, and the nations
of the earth would be brought into subjection to
that glorified kingdom with its seat of power on
Mount Sion.
Meantime, while these prophetic dreams were in
abeyance, Hezekiah did much to purify the wor
ship of the day, expelling idolatrous practices not
only from the temple but from the shrines in other
parts of his kingdom. In the reaction against im
ages and symbols, he caused the Nehustan, or
brazen serpent, which had so long been considered
a visible token of divinity, to be destroyed. Jeru
salem increased in importance and was regarded
more as the centre of national worship as well as
of national power.
The prophets were ever jealous of the growth
of secular power and of wealth, as productive of
that pride and self-sufficiency that were so obnox
ious to Jehovah, and of those sins and iniquities
that seduced men from obedience to him. There
was a constant decrying of riches and luxury, and
secular power was regarded as almost synonymous
with oppression. The poor and lowly, the humble
and meek, if not regarded as necessarily righteous,
were represented as virtually the only class capa
ble of righteousness, or of a proper submission to
the divine Avill. This became almost an essential
doctrine of early Judaism, and was still more clear-

152 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
ly developed in primitive Christianity. It has al
ways been in some sort the leaven in that perpetual
ferment known as socialism.
The reign of Hezekiah was no less remarkable
for the literary activity which characterized it. In
fact the power of the HebreAV language and the
vitality of the ancient Hebrew literature reached
its climax at about this time, say seven centuries
before the beginning of the Christian era. After
the capture of Samaria many of the lettered men
of the Northern Kingdom took refuge at Jerusalem,
and brought with them such treasures as had been
saved from the wreck. The period of peace and
prosperity saw much of what we now have of the
Jewish scriptures put in substantially the form,
though not in the arrangement, in which we have
it. The two versions of the early history of the
people, known to critics as the Jehovist and the Elo
hist, were imperfectly welded into one. The shorter
and later one, first produced at Jerusalem, appears
to have been used as the basis, but was pieced out
Avith large extracts from the other, and sometimes
neAV material was plainly used in the process of
soldering together the parts. The old antipathies
had been softened by the calamities of Ephraim,
the full pride of Judah was not yet developed, and
before the later " harmonizers " got to work upon
this material it had assumed an intractable, if

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY ACTIVITY 153
not a sacred, quality that prevented obliteration
of the incongruities that betray its varied origin.
Parts of both accounts of the creation and the del
uge were used, and there are many repetitions and
inconsistencies, and some contradictions, which
show that little pains and less skill Avas displayed
in the process, Avhich may be better described as
patching than as welding or blending. The fuller
account of the Exodus seems to have been pieced
out with incidents from the shorter one, and both
the book of the covenant of the Northern version
and the decalogue of the Southern were incorpo
rated. The account was carried down to the con
quest and partition of the land under Joshua, but
the development of the law, contained mainly in
Deuteronomy and Leviticus, was much later, when
the narratives were expanded to fit it.
It was doubtless at this time also that a continu
ation of the popular history was undertaken, out
of the material supplied chiefly by the " Book of
Jasher " and the " Wars of Jehovah," and by the
genealogies collected at Jerusalem. From this
came the substances of the account of the Judges,
perhaps the story of Euth, and the narratives con
nected with the first setting up of the kingdom con
tained in the Books of Samuel. No doubt also
some of the annals were put in form that were
afterward drawn upon for the more strictly histori-

154 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
cal books. The literary coterie that surrounded
the king unquestionably made a collection of the
popular proverbs and wise sayings that had ac
cumulated since the days of Solomon, many of
which were attributed to that monarch, and made
considerable additions to them. A collection
seems likewise to have been made of the poems,
mainly with a rehgious turn, but some rather
historical than devotional, which constituted what
became known as "the Psalms." This form of
composition may have begun in the time of David,
and his name was doubtless associated with the
first collection of them, as it was with subsequent
extensions of the collection, but it is impossible to
prove his actual authorship of any one piece, and
very few can be plausibly attributed to him. A
considerable number were probably written in the
time of Hezekiah, especially of those with a more
hopeful and exultant tone, for that enlightened
monarch seems to have given every encouragement
to letters, and the Hebrew language then reached
its height of fruitful and varied expression. Com
petent critics ascribe the Book of Job to the same
period, largely on internal evidence derived from
the language and the ideas, though the latter ap
pear quite as characteristic of a somewhat later
time.

XXVII
A CEISIS FOE JUDAH
During the period of tranquillity that followed
the terror of the Assyrian conquests and the sub
mission of Judah to the overpowering empire, there
was a constant weakening of the authority of Sar
gon, which encouraged revolt among the tribu
taries. In this spirit of revolt and resistance
Hezekiah shared, under the encouragement of the
secular party, still headed by Shebna. He ceased
paying tribute, and continued negotiations for
alliance with Egypt and Ethiopia. Against this
policy Isaiah protested with all his energy, and
threatened destruction as its consequence. He
advocated non-resistance to Assyria, which was for
the time being the agent of Jehovah, but which
would in its time be destroyed, when the purified
remnant of God's people Avould triumph. When
Sargon was succeeded by his more vigorous and
aggressive son, Sennacherib, a vacillating policy
became perilous. Sennacherib set out to reduce
to submission his father's rebellious tributaries in
Syria, Judah, Philistia, and Phoenicia. There

156 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
was a sharp conflict between the secular and re
hgious parties at Jerusalem, and the fierce decla
mations of Isaiah carried the day for the latter.
The prophet denounced all military preparations
for resistance, and was especially fierce against
alliance with Egypt. His imperative mandate for
complete reliance on Jehovah seemed like treach
ery to his country, but it was really far-sighted
prudence, for resistance to the Assyrian power was
hopeless, and would probably have brought upon
Jerusalem the fate of Samaria. But submission
was humiliating and costly. It was forced at the
very gates of the capital by the Assyrian army,
and Sennacherib exacted such indemnity that the
temple and the palace were not only despoiled once
more of their treasures, but stripped of their most
precious adornments.
These events, which implied a deep humiliation
for the nation and a triumph for the prophets that
could hardly have been more than half-gratifying,
were followed by one of those extraordinary inci
dents which in a few recorded instances have ap
peared to turn the whole course of history as upon
a pivot, and it made the triumph of Isaiah seem
complete. It is not unnatural that a superstitious
delusion became associated with it, which the
prophet probably did not discourage, and may
have shared, and which produced a curious legend

A CRISIS FOR JUDAH 157
cutting sharply into a record purporting to be his
torical. For some reason not made clear, perhaps dis
trust of Hezekiah's loyalty, Sennacherib, who
was becoming hard pressed by his powerful ene
mies of the South, decided, after all, to reduce
Jerusalem into complete subjection before Avith-
drawing his armies for the more serious conflict
with Egypt and Ethiopia. While the movements
for this purpose were going on, Isaiah, doubtless
knowing of the critical pressure upon Sennacherib's
forces elsewhere, rose to a sublime height of con
fidence and prophecy, promising deliverance for
Sion and discomfiture for Assyria. Sure enough,
in the night that part of the Assyrian host which
was encamped against Jerusalem was suddenly
withdrawn to join with the other forces and meet
the army of Ethiopia, which was advancing under
Tirhakah to cut off Sennacherib from his own do
main. The army of the Assyrian monarch was
defeated and cut to pieces on the confines of
Egypt, and he retired from his overwhelming de
feat in that quarter to Nineveh, and gave up his
career of conquest. Though he Avas finally assas
sinated, it was only after a prosperous reign of
many years.
The disorder of the suddenly abandoned camp
near Jerusalem, and rumors which speedily came

158 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of the slaughter of Sennacherib's army, led to the
belief that Jehovah had interposed to save his
people, and the avenging angel of the Lord had
slain the Assyrian host in the night. It was a
marvellous triumph for the prophet, and the
writers of later times accepted the legend as his
tory, and even connected with it the assassination
of Sennacherib at Nineveh, though that happened
years afterward, and had no relation to the deliver
ance of Judah.
This critical turn in the history of Judah oc
curred probably in the very last year of the eighth
century before the Christian era (701 B.C.), and the
reign of Hezekiah continued four or five years
longer. It was a period of restored prosperity and
power for the kingdom, and the influence of the
prophets continued in the ascendant. In the great
double empire of the Mesopotamian region the
power of Nineveh Avas sinking and that of Babylon
was rising. The Southern focus was draAving force
from the Northern and threatening it Avith eclipse.
Merodach-Baladan of Babylon sought alliance Avith
the nations of which Assyria had made enemies,
and sent to the King of Judah envoys who were
received with a friendliness and trust that excited
the disapproval of Isaiah. The clear-sighted
prophet saw danger in confiding in this great for
eign poAver, which was liable at any time to enter

A CRISIS FOR JUDAH 159
upon a career of conquest on its oavu account, and
his prudence was mingled with that abiding faith
in a reliance upon Jehovah Avhich admitted of no
compromise. The king was submissive to the re
buke of his great counsellor, and his sudden illness
and temporary recovery Avere used to impress upon
him once more his dependence upon the real ruler
of Israel's destiny. He was made content with the
assurance of peace and safety for the remnant of
his own days. There is in the account of these
final incidents of his reign plain evidence of the
color giAren to them by the pious writers who made
up the record.

XXVIII
A EELAPSE
Before the death of Hezekiah (about 696 B.C.)
there Avere signs of reaction against the stern puri-
tanism established under the teachings and influ
ence of the prophets at Jerusalem, which had
become somewhat intolerant and irksome, and that
reaction ran through the long reign of Manasseh,
the short one of his son Amon, and the first years
of Josiah, a period of perhaps seventy-five years
in all. Manasseh came to the throne at the age of
tAvelve, and was doubtless under the control of his
mother Hephzibah. There are many evidences
that the Avomen of the royal family and of the aris
tocratic class generally had a proclivity for the
pagan worship of the time, and an aversion to the
stern doctrines of the prophets, who were wont to
charge them with frivolity and profligacy. At all
events there was a frightful relapse into idolatrous
practices and into the vices and abuses that accom
panied them. The long reign of Manasseh was
looked back upon by the scribes of a later time as
filled with abominations. In their brief but exag-

A RELAPSE 161
gerated references to it they painted it in the
blackest colors, and could only compare it with the
awful days of Ahab at Samaria. The priestly
Avriter of the Chronicles, intent upon redeeming
the house of David from the reproach, represents
the king as being carried away captive for his sins
and brought to repentance and restored, but there
is no historical basis for the statement. It is in
virtual contradiction of the account in Kings,
against all probability, and inconsistent with all
other records. That an Assyrian king should
carry his captive to Babylon at that time is in it
self a manifest absurdity.
Manasseh fell under control of the secular party
and reverted to the tolerant and easy-going policy
of Ahaz. As a result the worship of Baal and Ash
teroth revived, heathen altars were rehabilitated
in the high places, and even invaded the precincts
of the temple at Jerusalem. The grossest of the
old Canaanite rites appear to have been restored,
and if the Judean writers are to be believed the
smoke of human sacrifice rose again in the valley
of the sons of Hinnom. The oppression of Assy
rian power was no longer felt, and there was an
era of peace and material prosperity, with the
usual result of enervating luxury and a benumbing
of the sense of justice. The anavim and hasidim,
or the meek and loAvly, who had acquired a kind
11

162 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of sacred character and special consideration under
Hezekiah, were without influence and suffered at
the hands of the arrogant. Their Avails have come
through the centuries in some of the pathetic
psalms. Divination and sorcery and all the old
evils sprang up anew, and it almost seemed as
though Jehovah had forgotten his people.
The single prophetic voice then raised Avas that
of Nahum, and it lacked the tone that had become
familiar in the time of national trouble. Nahum
had nothing to say of the backsliding of the people
or the penalties they Avere in danger of incurring,
but he railed fiercely against his country's power
ful enemy, and threatened destruction to Nineveh.
Assyria Avas losing power, and Avas not only yield
ing before the ascendancy of Babylon, but Avas be
set by new enemies from the North, and overshad
owed by the menace of a Scythian invasion and
the rising combination of Medes and Persians.
Nineveh Avas indeed doomed, as Nahum boldly
assumed. In the mouth of this prophet Jehovah
became again a Deity of wrath, hatred, and ven
geance. There are none of the diviner touches of
Isaiah's God, and no visions of the future kingdom
of righteousness and peace for a purified remnant
of Israel.
The death of Manasseh, after fifty-five years of
what seemed like prosperous wickedness, brought

A RELAPSE 163
no change. His son Amon, after a reign of two
years, was assassinated as a result of a court con
spiracy, which produced a popular uprising and
the slaughter of the conspirators. This brought
Josiah to the throne, but as he was only eight
years old and under the direction of his mother,
Jedidah, the same influences continued to rule for
some years.
But another great crisis in the fortunes of Is
rael was at hand. The genuine spirit of proph
ecy awoke again at last. The first to give it voice
was Zephaniah, Avho once more Avith stern wrath
assailed the iniquities of the time in the name
of Jehovah. His accents Avere harsh, as he threat
ened with destruction not only the enemies of
Israel, but the " rebellious and polluted " city,
whose sanctuary was profaned. But the voice of
hope and promise was raised again also. The
nations were to be brought together only to be
scourged, and the purified remnant would yet be
restored and the Lord Avould be their king. But
Zephaniah was the forerunner of a greater than
he. The portentous figure of Jeremiah Avas about
to come upon the scene.

XXIX
JEEEMIAH AND A EEFOEMATION
The circumstances attending the conversion
which the young king underwent are a matter of
conjecture, but in the light of the influences sur
rounding him conjecture becomes almost certainty.
Before Josiah had become of age, not only was the
startling voice of Zephaniah raised to give warn
ing that the gross iniquities of the time would
bring a terrible penalty, but out of a little circle of
priests at Anatoth, just north of Jerusalem, came
a champion of reformation possessed with the
spirit that makes revolutions. When Jeremiah
began his denunciations and warnings it was
among his own kin, but they excited such hostil
ity that he turned his back upon Anatoth with
curses and betook himself to the centre of agita
tion at Jerusalem. There he began his inex
orable crusade against the existing order of things.
He had not the intellectual poAver, the mighty
rhetoric, the literary force of Isaiah, and the
language of Judah had lost something of its gleam
and temper. But the soul of Jeremiah had a

JEREMIAH AND A REFORMATION 165
consuming ardor, a fervid devotion to the great
Jehovah, and intense hatred, not only of Avrong,
but of wrong-doers, as they appeared to his eyes,
and a courage and obstinacy that never flinched
or wavered. His faith in the power and the
justice of Israel's God was absolute and unques
tioning, and he probably never doubted that his
own deep and burning convictions were stirred
within him by the overpowering Deity, or that
their utterance was inspired by him. That was
the prophet's unvarying claim, and he met Avith
scorn and derision any counsel that differed from
his own. God, interpreted through his tempera
ment, lacked some of the gracious aspects of the
God of Isaiah. Jeremiah was a fanatic — fierce,
uncompromising, intolerant — with a veritable gen
ius for fanaticism and a mission to fulfil that re
quired it.
When this austere figure appeared in the streets
of Jerusalem and raised that piercing voice against
the abuses of the time, it came like a " herald of
dismay." There were disquieting movements in
the great powers to the East, at whose mercy little
Judah always lay in the pathway to the sea, and
there Avere rumors of terrible hordes aAvay at the
North threatening to sweep down upon declining
Assyria. As Jeremiah depicted in cutting accents
the sins of Israel, the idolatry and corruption

166 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
that prevailed, the wrong and injustice that Avere
practised upon the poor and helpless, and all the
multitudinous evils of a degenerate age, he drew a
terrible indictment against the people for diso
bedience, ingratitude, and outrage toward their
God, whose wrath had been accumulating and
was about to break forth. He pictured the terror
and desolation that would befall them when the
impending scourge should fall.
Nothing could silence that terrific voice, and the
prophet omitted no device that would give his
Avords a startling effect. Nor was he alone. He
was seconded by Habakkuk, only a few of whose
ardent utterances have come down to us, and there
are glimpses of a prophetess, Huldah, in sympathy
Avith the reforming element, while there are indica
tions that a similar spirit prevailed in the priest
hood of the temple. It is evident that before the
influences of this growing agitation the old secular
party was forced to give way, and the youthful
sovereign threw himself, perhaps in alarm, into
the new movement. It was about the middle of
his reign, sometime between 625 and 620 B.C., that
the sweeping " reforms of Josiah " were under
taken. Not only were all the appurtenances of
heathen worship cleared out of the temple and its
precincts, and that sanctuary purged and purified,
but the altars and images of the " high places "

JEREMIAH AND A REFORMATION It,/
Avere ruthlessly destroyed. These places, origi
nally devoted to the Avorship of pagan divinities,
had been appropriated to the uses of the national
religion, and there was a constant tendency to a
minghng of rites and the corruption of the cult
of Jehovah.
Previous reforms had aimed at suppressing the
altars and idols of the alien gods, but Josiah
went to the root of the matter and set out to
destroy the " high places " altogether as places
of Avorship, and to concentrate the devotions
and offerings of the people upon the temple at
Jerusalem. Sorcery, witchcraft, and all forms of
divination were included in his sweeping aboli
tion, and to bring the valley of Hinnom into special
detestation, it was made a place for dumping and
burning the offal of the city, and became popularly
known as Tophet. That the uprooting of the an
cient forms of Avorship was carried into the prov
inces of Samaria would seem to indicate at once
that the remnant of the Israelite population had
regained ascendancy there, and that the Assyrian
sovereignty was so relaxed, or the counteracting
force of Babylon so advanced, as to permit the
king of Judah to exercise a subordinate sway in
those parts.
The suppression of the old provincial shrines
was accompanied by measures for building up

168 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the temple at Jerusalem as the centre of national
worship and of the religious interests of the
people, which was made practicable by the fact
that the dominion of the king extended in no
direction more than forty or fifty miles from the
capital at this time. The temple was repaired,
its appliances and treasures were replenished, and
the priests were drawn in from the old places of
worship to minister in its service. The Levites,
who had hitherto been scattered over the country,
were gathered into a distinct class of servants
and attendants of the temple, and a beginning
was made of the organization so highly developed
in later times. Feasts and fasts were established,
or re-established, and the passover was celebrated
in a manner to impress the people deeply with its
significance. Another important factor in the great reform
was the public promulgation of the law. The
book that had been formed by combining the two
versions of the primitive history of the people
and the dealings of Jehovah with their ancestors
contained both the " covenant " of the Northern
version and the ten commandments of that of
Jerusalem, which constituted the beginning of a
systematic Torah. This volume was probably
knoAvn to but few persons, and may have existed
in only a single copy in the keeping of the priests

JEREMIAH AND A REFORMATION 169
of the temple. The people at large knew nothing
of the " laws of Moses " or the " statutes " of Jeho
vah. No doubt the need was felt of elaborating
this little code into a fuller system and bringing
its requirements to bear upon the people and
upon the rulers of the people.
There can be little question that this task was
performed within that coterie of priests and
prophets which was at the centre of the religious
ferment of the time, and there is reason to believe
that it was done under the influence, if not under
the direction, of Jeremiah. The work has the
tone and spirit, and in some respects the language,
of his teachings. In due time it was announced
to the king by Shaphan the scribe, that Hilkiah,
the high-priest, had " found the book of the laAv
in the house of the Lord," and Huldah, the
prophetess, gave it her sanction, with an impres
sive warning to the king of the consequences of
disregarding its mandates. Josiah was then
scarcely more than twenty-five years of age, and
was in the height of the reforming zeal of a royal
convert with autocratic poAver. So the priests
and prophets, the elders of Judah and Jerusalem,
and " all the people, both great and small," were
gathered together, and the king in person pro
claimed the neAV law, and bound himself and his
subjects to its observance. It constitutes the bulk

170 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of the book known as Deuteronomy. It is a
fact of curious interest that Jeremiah is not men
tioned in the Book of Kings, nor, in connection
Avith Josiah's reign, by the author of Chronicles,
save in a passing reference to his lamenting that
king's death, and that the prophet's recorded dec
lamations precede and follow the period of the
reforms. Was he inactive and silent during that
period ?

XXX
THE SHADOW OF DOOM
There is little evidence of literary activity at
this time outside of the religious movement,
which absorbed the energies of those capable of
literary production. No doubt some of the psalms
were Avritten in the days of Josiah, but it is diffi
cult to distinguish them. The material used in
later compilations of scripture was accumulating,
but some of it was afterward so woven and
patched into existing books that it cannot be
traced to its source with certainty. In this kind
of material were some of the " agadas " relating to
the prophets, and probably beginning with Moses
in that character, and these were used in develop
ing and embellishing passages of history, or en
forcing lessons of experience, in a manner to
deepen the obscurity in which facts were already
enveloped. ToAvard the close of the seventh century B.C.
the clouds of doom began to overshadow the little
kingdom of Judah and to threaten Jerusalem Avith
the fate that had befallen Samaria something over

172 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
a hundred years before. After reaching the height
of its splendor under Assurbanipal — the Sarda-
napalus of the Greek historians — the Assyrian em
pire began to decline before the rising power of
Babylon. The Chaldean race, which had tradi
tions of long dominion there in the ages of a dim
antiquity, had recovered its ascendancy, and when,
under the irresistible pressure of the Scythians
and the Medes, Nineveh was at last crushed into
the melancholy ruin that was buried in after cen
turies, Nabopolassar extended the Chaldean sway
over the whole Mesopotamian region, and his son,
Nebuchadnezzar, raised Babylon to the height of
grandeur which made it a wonder and a terror to
the Eastern world.
Egypt, the rival and enemy of the Assyrian
power, had taken advantage of its waning strength,
and under the energetic rule of Psammeticus and
his son Necho, had entered upon a new career of
conquest in the North. In the year 609 B.C.
Necho landed a force upon the coast of Phoenicia
and set out to cross the old provinces of Israel in
the North to take possession of Syria. He had
no quarrel with the king of Jerusalem, but Josiah
considered himself as having authority over the
northern provinces, as the vassal of the king of
Babylon, who now asserted his sway over Assyria,
against Avhich Necho was advancing. Accordingly

THE SHADOW OF DOOM 173
he interposed his puny force to resist the Egyp
tian army, and was easily defeated at Megiddo,
and sent home dead in his chariot, while Necho
went on his way.
It would seem like a hard bloAv to those AA'ho
relied on their faith in Jehovah that the pious
king who had done so much for his cause was cut
off before reaching his fortieth year, while his sin
ful grandfather had a fairly peaceful and prosper
ous reign of fifty-five years. But that and the
calamities which followed were attributed to the
" provocations " wherewith Manasseh had pro
voked the Lord in the days of his wicked rule,
and to the evil doings of the kings who followed
Josiah — three of them his sons and one his
grandson — covering the score of years before the
capture and destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuch
adnezzar. In reality the untimely fate of Josiah
was fortunate for the estimation in which he was
to be held in after times ; for his successors were
forced to take the responsibility for defending, or
failing to defend, their realm against foreign ag
gression, and in their manner of meeting it con
sisted mainly the " evil " which they did " in the
sight of the Lord." They refused to follow the
counsel of Jeremiah and to submit supinely, ac
cepting meekly the chastisement of Jehovah, and
relying implicitly upon him to save them from

174 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
their enemies. Jeremiah was undoubtedly right
as to the hopelessness of the struggle and the cer
tainty of defeat and destruction. His direful pre
dictions were but slightly iUumined with the hope
of restoration and future glory, though they were
somewhat lightened up by the revision which they
afterward underwent.
On the death of Josiah one of his younger
sons, Shallum, was proclaimed king, under the
name of Jehoahaz; but, returning from the As
syrian expedition three months later, Necho took
occasion to depose him and set his older brother,
Eliakim, on the throne, with the name of Jehoiakim,
and to exact a heavy tribute from the kingdom
for presuming to interfere with his operations.
Jehoahaz was carried off to Egypt, and Jehoiakim
accepted submission to that country. A short
period of ease followed, and a disposition was
shown to indulge in Egyptian luxuries. There
Avas a relapse from the religious tension, a reac
tion toward a toleration of pagan practices, and a
slipping into the iniquities of a quiet time. The
poor Avere oppressed, the hands of justice failed,
and, above all, the influence of the prophets over
the government gave way to the more practical
counsels of the " wicked."
This roused the spirit of Jeremiah to a veritable
rage. He not only poured out his wrath upon

THE SHADO W OF DOOM 175
the sins of the time and upon the evil-doers, but
violently denounced the king and his advisers,
and predicted ruin and destruction to Jerusalem
and slaughter and desolation to the land of Judah.
He was seconded in his furious onslaught by
others, notably Habakkuk, and a certain Uriah,
who paid for his zeal with his life. Jeremiah
himself narrowly escaped the wrath of the prev
alent party. After the battle of Karkemis, or
" Carchemish," at which Nebuchadnezzar routed
the army of Necho and destroyed the pretensions
of Egypt in the Euphrates region, the great proph
et aAvoke to the fact that the king of Babylon
was the " scourge of the Lord," with which He
was to chastise Israel, and he never wavered in
his prediction of impending disaster and his de
nunciation of resistance as not only useless but
sinful. He was regarded as a traitor whose un
curbed violence of speech disheartened the people
and paralyzed the government, but nothing could
silence him, or subdue his terrible tones of men
ace, and there was a feeling that the prophets had
a certain relation to Jehovah, which gave them
poAver to bring to pass what they predicted.
Jeremiah launched into a panegyric of Nebuchad
nezzar upon the defeat of Egypt and revelled in
the disasters of that hated land. He gloated over
the coming slaughter and desolation of other

176 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
countries that had been enemies of Israel, and
were liable to become victims of the new con
queror. As the Babylonian warrior directed his
march toward Judah, the year after the battle of
" Carchemish," the prophet took occasion to utter
his most direful predictions of disaster, and to
have his previous denunciations and warnings
Avritten out and read to the people in the purlieus
of the temple and the palace by Baruch the
scribe. This excited the Avrath of the court, and
the terrible document Avas read before the king,
who, in his anger, cut it into strips and threAv it
in the fire. The prophet had it rewritten, and
added to it still more bitter railing against the
sovereign, Avho should have no successor, and
whose dead body should be " cast out in the day
to the heat, and in the night to the frost."

XXXI
"THE CAEEYING AWAY TO BABYLON
Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem, but did
not inflict the predicted chastisement. Having
forced Jehoiakim to recognize his sovereignty,
he returned to Babylon to receive the title of
king, his father having just died. Judah was
left for three or four years a constant prey to
hostile neighbors, when its king committed the
incredible folly of rebelling against Babylon,
whose power was obviously not to be resisted
with any hope of success. During this short
period the wrathful mood of the prophets con
tinued against those who relied upon military
force and secular power to escape the judgment
of Jehovah.
The fate of the king is unknown, but in 598 B.C.
he was succeeded by his son Jeconiah, Avhose name
Avas thereupon changed to Jehoiachin. As he was
only eighteen years of age, and his reign lasted
only three months, the "evil in the sight of the
Lord " which he is said to have committed, could
hardly have consisted in anything more than re-
12

178 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
fusing to listen to the prophets and presuming to
resist the Chaldean army, which was already ap
proaching Jerusalem to punish the revolt of Je
hoiakim. Jeremiah fairly raged against the young
king and his mother, Nehusta, who probably exer
cised a sort of regency. He even threatened the
utter destruction of the royal race, but accompanied
the menace with a mysterious promise of a restora
tion of both Judah and Israel under a righteous
king, a new scion to be raised unto David.
The approach of the hostile army produced a
general terror and a flocking to the capital for
safety; but before Nebuchadnezzar could begin the
terrible siege for which he was preparing, the king
and his family and court went out of the city to
meet him, and to surrender unconditionally. Je
hoiachin was deposed and carried captive to
Babylon, with his officers and chief men. In fact
what was regarded as the influential class was
bodily transported, and though the priests and
prophets, who had been virtually on the side of
the invader, were mostly left behind, there was
one notable exception in Ezekiel, from whom
much was to be heard out of the land of captiv
ity. The temple and palace were once more de
spoiled of everything worth carrying away, but
the kingdom was not yet to be blotted out. Mat
taniah, an uncle of the deposed king, was placed

THE CARRYING AWAY TO BABYLON 179
upon the throne under the royal name of Zedekiah,
but the fulfilment of Jeremiah's direful prophecy
of destruction and desolation was only deferred.
The condition of things that excited the ire of
the prophets continued under Zedekiah, and when
the king showed a disposition to join with the
other subject nations about him in an effort to
throw off the yoke of Babylon, he Avas violently
assailed for his presumption. There were, how
ever, prophets professing to speak in the name of
Jehovah who encouraged this policy and promised
success ; but these, and especially the chief of them,
Hananiah, were virulently denounced as false and
lying prophets by Jeremiah, who went declaiming
about the streets with a yoke upon his neck, sym
bolic of subjection to Nebuchadnezzar, who Avas
characterized as "the servant of God." Eesist-
ance to him was to be punished with the sword
and with famine and pestilence. Predictions of
success for the alliance of the subject nations to
recover their independence filled Jeremiah Avith
fury, and his prescience was certainly clearer than
that of the king's advisers, for such a policy meant
sure destruction, however humiliating submission
might be.
While these puny kings of the Jordan region
Avere plotting and planning resistance to the over
powering empire of the Tigris and Euphrates —

ISO THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
during the long lull before the final sweep of the
scourge fell upon Judah — there were strange com
munications between the faithful at Jerusalem and
the exiles in Mesopotamia. Jeremiah, reserving
his regard at home for the austere brotherhood of
the Eechabites and other submissive souls, recog
nized the true seed of the future Israel in the
captives of Babylon, and Ezekiel sent his weird
visions from the river Chebar, not to cheer or en
courage his compatriots, but to reprove them and
prepare them for their doom. By his mystic use
of symbolism and imagery he became a sort of
prototype of the apocalyptic writers, but his im
mediate object was rather practical. His policy
was as much for submission to Nebuchadnezzar as
was that of Jeremiah.
The latter sent messages to the exiles advising
them to settle down, build houses, and plant gar
dens, as for a permanent stay. One of the exiled
"prophets" who presumed to question the wisdom
of this advice was fiercely doomed to be an out
cast, with all his race. The most hopeful strain of
the long period of gloom that followed the death
of Josiah came from the unknown author of the
last three chapters of the Book of Zechariah, who
looked forward to the time when Jerusalem should
be delivered from her enemies, and the ideal king
dom of the Lord should be established. It was a

THE CARRYING AWAY TO BABYLON 181
vision that had been cherished before, and that
would return in the centuries to come, to allure
the untiring hope of Israel, finally to be trans
formed into a new vision of the spiritual kingdom
of the Messiah.
But there was to be a long period of tribulation
and of changes, of Avhich the prophets never
dreamed. The coming scourge of Babylon they
did foresee, and Jeremiah rejoiced in it as the only
hope of purging Judah of its iniquities. Ezekiel
announced the sharpening of the sword of the
Lord, as Nebuchadnezzar prepared to crush the
spirit of revolt among his tributaries of the West.
That warrior directed his forces against Jerusalem
in the year 590 B.C., and it seems strange that it
required a siege of two years to reduce it. But
Tyre was besieged at the same time, the country
round about was devastated, and there was an in
terruption of operations to repel an attack from
Egypt. Amidst famine, untold suffering, and he
roic resistance, Jeremiah did not remit his gloomy
forebodings or his demand for a surrender to the
enemy. It is little wonder that he Avas regarded
as a traitor and throAvn into a foul dungeon, but
he commanded a degree, of dread, if not of rever
ence, sufficient to induce the king to effect his
rescue and protect his hfe. When the doomed
city Avas finally taken and sacked, and the king

182 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
was sent to a Babylonian prison with his eyes put
out, the prophet's knoAvn sympathy for the con
queror saved him from all hurt.
Jerusalem was left in utter ruin, and the land
made desolate, but it was not depopulated,
though many were carried into captivity ; and no
alien colonists were planted among the people of
Judah. After the work of destruction and subjec
tion had been completed by Nebuchadnezzar's
chief officer, a native of the country (Gedaliah)
was made governor ; but in the disordered condi
tion of things he soon fell a victim to a plot and
Avas assassinated. The incident that chiefly inter
ests us in the turbulent scenes that followed was
the escape of a band of refugees to Egypt, carry
ing Jeremiah and Baruch with them, in spite of
the protestations of the former that it was against
the command of Jehovah. Even from the land of
the Nile that irrepressible voice was heard de
nouncing the idolatry of the country and threaten
ing it with the fate of Judah at the hands of Nebu
chadnezzar. The last audible cry of the prophet,
as his fellow-exiles lapsed into the worship of
" the Queen of Heaven," was a positive and im
pressive prediction, Avhich conspicuously failed of
fulfilment ; but Jeremiah's mission was ended
when his own land had " become a desolation, and
an astonishment, and a curse."

xxxn
THE CAPTIVITY AND DELIVEEANCE
The period of Babylonian captivity lasted from
588 to 535 B.C., fifty-three years, though the first
partial deportation took place ten years before the
fah of Jerusalem. Those who were carried away
included the official and military class, the priests
of the temple, the people of substance, and all Avho
were supposed to make the power of the nation,
leaving the mass of the common people attached
to the soil. The head and heart of Israel were
transferred to the banks of the Euphrates, Avhere
in the obscurity of exile they kept up a feverish
activity that hastened the development of Judaism.
The first " JeAvish quarter " was established within
the preeincts of Babylon, and some of the traits
that have characterized the "peculiar people" ever
since received their strongest impress there. While
kept within certain Umits of residence, and subject
to official restraint, they were treated neither as
slaves nor as prisoners. Submissive to authority
and aAved by the power and grandeur of the great
capital, they still cherished a pride of race that

184 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
held in scorn the luxury and display about them.
But some took advantage of their opportunities,
pushed into the service of the ruling class, engaged
in industry and trade ; and, in achieving worldly
prosperity, lost interest in their own land. In this
way, no doubt, most of those who had been out of
sympathy with the religious spirit of their nation
were drawn off from that saving remnant that was
destined to return and continue its great mission.
It was another step in the process of depuration.
In the "Jewish quarter" of Babylon the first
synagogue was planted. The devout hearts that
yearned for Sion were wont to gather together to
recall the memories of Jerusalem and unite in their
vows of fidelity to Jehovah and his laAV. Ezekiel
appears to have become the dominating spirit
among the exiles. He set himself the task of con
soling and encouraging them, and of cheering
them with hopes of restoration and future glory.
In a series of visions filled with mystic symbol
ism, the prophet embodied the promises of Jeho
vah. The sufferings of the people were to atone
for their past sins and for those of their rulers ;
their old enemies were to be destroyed ; they were
to return to their own land, which would become
an earthly paradise. The tribes would be reunited
and David would be their prince forever. The
Lord would make with them an everlasting cove-

THE CAPTIVITY AND DELIVERANCE 185
nant and set his sanctuary in the midst of them
forevermore. These glowing and visionary promises of Ezekiel
were followed by definite plans of restoration. He
dreamed of taking possession of the land from the
Jordan to the sea and dividing it again among the
tribes, and establishing therein the ideal theocratic
realm. The temple was to be reconstructed on a
new and grander scale, and its worship was to be
developed upon lines laid down by the prophet.
While these predictions were vague and even more
visionaiy than vague, and as far as possible from
any subsequent reality in their details, Ezekiel out
lined the hierarchy of the priesthood and the liturgy
of the temple much as they came to be adopted,
and he extended materially the scope of the ac
cepted "law."
The most precious treasure which the captives
of Jerusalem had carried with them into exile was
the literature that had gathered within the pre
cincts of the temple from the time of Solomon. It
must have been saved in great confusion, from
which it was never completely extricated, and
the piecing and patching, arranging and copying
which it afterward underwent, were done with
neither care nor skill, and greatly helped to
obscure its significance in many parts. Modern
research and critical acumen are still unable to

186 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
clear it wholly from the obscurity which incapacity
was engaged for ages in deepening.
It was during this period of leisure and of free
dom from the necessity of making practical appli
cation of the rules prescribed for a future state of
things that anew development of the law was made,
substantially upon lines laid down by Ezekiel, and
possibly under his direction. What is called the
Levitical law was not then completed, but the
substance of it was made up as it constituted the
main part of the book called Leviticus and contrib
uted passages to Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua
in their final form. Not only was Moses contin
ued as the law-giver, but for the first time Aaron
was made the head of the priesthood, and the tribe
of Levi was practically created. The first descrip
tion of the paraphernalia of worship in the wilder
ness was made at this time, together with the de
tailed account of devising the appurtenances of
the ark and the vestments of priests. Nearly all
of what may be designated as the Levitical system
was the product of the exile, and was apparently
inspired by Ezekiel, who was a priest before he
became known as a prophet. In connection with
this work was a further development of the Mosaic
legend. The annals of the kings of Israel and Judah
were completed during the early years of the exile,

THE CAPTIVITY AND DELIVERANCE 187
and efforts were made to put in form the writings
of the prophets. The same hand that edited and
completed the Book of Kings evidently put to
gether, Avith connecting narratives, the " prophe
cies " of Jeremiah, but in a sadly disordered shape.
Baruch, who was said at one time to have written
out the prophet's denunciations and warnings, and
who was carried with him to Egypt, is supposed,
after Jeremiah's death, to have made his way to
Babylon and joined the colony there. Otherwise
it is hard to explain how the account of the great
prophet's latest utterances got into the collection.
Of his death there was no account, but some find
obscure references to his fate in the " man of sor
rows " of the later Isaiah. Other literary produc
tions of these years may include the Book of
Lamentations — certainly not by Jeremiah — and a
number of the psalms.
A few years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar
(561 B.C.) there was a change of dynasty, and
under the usurper, Nabonahid, the Chaldean
power rapidly declined. The aggressive spirit of
conquest, Avhich for ages had hovered from Egypt
to Babylon and Nineveh, with alternate rises and
falls, had taken possession of a new empire to the
east. The Medes and Persians became the ar
biters of destiny in the region of the Tigris and
Euphrates, and the first Cyrus assumed the role

188 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of conqueror. As usual, the man who for the time
being seemed to wield an irresistible power ap
peared to the devout of Israel as the servant of
their God. When the army of Cyrus was on the
way to crush the pride of Babylon with a force
that could not be withstood, the exultant voice of
the Hebrew prophet rose once more in those clar
ion tones that have rolled down the ages, produc
ing awe in successive generations of men.
Ezekiel had died shortly after the death of
Nebuchadnezzar, and from that time men who
were moved to speak in the name of Jehovah
seemed to be reluctant to do so in their own per
son. They sought to, clothe their utterances with
the prestige of some prophet already held in rev
erence, or to veil them under a symbolic character.
At all events, the great prophet of the deliverance
from captivity and the return to Sion spoke in
the name of Isaiah, and his inspiring words Avere
bound up Avith those of the revered counsellor of
Hezekiah's reign, in the book bearing that name
as a title. The assumption of character and the
association of writings were appropriate. The
later prophet seems not only to have absorbed the
spirit of the earher one, but to have acquired his
mastery of language, at least for the purpose for
which he used it. It has a less portentous force
and a more joyous tone, but it has the same vi-

THE CAPTIVITY AND DELIVERANCE 189
brant ring. The new Isaiah represented an ad
vance of more than a century and a half in the
religious conceptions of his people, and was in
spired by a situation quite different from that of
his great prototype.
In the section of the Book of Isaiah beginning
with chapter xl. are found the utterances of the
unknown prophet of the time of the Persian con
quest, and scattered among the other chapters are
some fragments of the same time, and probably
of the same author, while a few passages relating
to the same events were interpolated in the Book
of Jeremiah. No sooner was the army of Cyrus
on foot against the decrepit empire than the pro
phetic voice was raised from the Jewish quarter
of Babylon joyfully announcing the day of deliv
erance. The power which at the height of its
vigor was regarded as the instrument of Jehovah
was treated with hatred and contempt in its de
cadence. The Hebrew captives had seen the
pride and arrogance and the idolatry and corrup
tion of the great city, and its decaying grandeur
excited their aversion and not their sympathy.
They hailed the rising splendor of Persia with
joy, and Cyrus succeeded Nebuchadnezzar as the
"servant of the Lord." Although the name of
the national God was retained, he had by this
time absorbed the lofty attributes of the Elohim,

190 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
and in the sublime conception of the second
Isaiah he became the universal Deity in a fuller
sense than ever before. Israel was still the spe
cial object of his care, and he used other nations
only to advance his chosen people, but his sway
was over all the earth.
Before and during the siege which resulted in
the fall, but not in the predicted destruction, of
Babylon, the unknown prophet indulged in dreams
not only of deliverance but of future greatness
and glory for restored and purified Israel. He
pictured Jehovah as leading back his people, and
the messengers upon the mountains as announcing
the glad tidings. He heard voices in the wilder
ness crying out for a preparation of the way. He
personified, sometimes in obscure and mystic sym
bolism, the past sufferings and future rewards of
the people. Beyond and above the crumbling
Babylon and the victorious Cyrus his vision reAr-
elled in the coming glory of Jerusalem, where jus
tice was to reign in a golden age of righteousness
and peace, and all nations would accept the sway
of Israel's God.

XXXIII
THE EETUEN AND EESTOEATION
The plain facts of the return from exile and the
restoration of Jerusalem and the temple, and of
the subsequent experience of the people of Israel,
showed little regard for the exalted visions of the
prophet, but these were long after turned to a
spiritual account for the benefit of humanity, with
an application of which the writers of Israel had
no conception. It was no part of the policy of
the Medes and Persians in their conquests to
transplant populations or to retain colonies of
captives. While Cyrus Avas represented by the
Jewish writers as acknowledging his allegiance to
" the Lord, the God of heaven," in their sense of
the term, and as being charged with the mission
of building him " an house in Jerusalem, which is
in Judah," it is probable that the Persian ruler
gave little thought to the band of Hebrew exiles
which he found in the purlieus of the conquered
city. He was a liberal monarch and they were a
helpless and harmless people, and no doubt they
were quite at liberty to go. Of their worship and

192 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the ardor of their longing for the land which they
had come to deem so sacred, he could have had no
comprehension. There were points of sympathy between the
Persians and Israelites, and the contact produced
notable effects. The Persians of that early day
had a strong monotheistic tendency and an aver
sion to the use of images and to the rites of
idolatry. There were in their theology the germs
of an exalted spirituality, and their moral stand
ard was a high one for the time. Moreover,
they were tolerant and generous. The authen
ticity of the alleged proclamation of Cyrus re
garding the return of the Jewish captives is more
than doubtful, and the actual facts are sufficiently
prosaic. It was, however, in a strict sense, the
return of a purified remnant, for the worldly and
indifferent were mostly left behind, and the con
centrated ardor, devotion, and fidelity of Israel,
the persistent leaven of the religious world, Avas
restored, to begin a new ferment at the "holy
city." There were two organized bands of returning
exiles, one under Sheshbazzar, son of the old
captive king, Jehoiachin, who after long years of
imprisonment at Babylon had been allowed to
pass his last days in comfort under the successor
of Nebuchadnezzar ; and the other under the old

THE RETURN AND RESTORATION 193
king's grandson, Zerubbabel, accompanied by the
priest Joshua, grandson of the Seraiah who was
put to death after the capture of Jerusalem. The
genealogies in the Book of Ezra are of no his
torical value, and the figures are grossly exag
gerated, like most statistics of that and earlier
times. The two caravans, which occupied from
three to four months in traversing the Syrian
desert from the Euphrates to the Jordan, made no
great addition in numbers to the population in
Judah, but they contributed a potent factor to its
future activity. It must have been a journey of
much hardship, even for a comparatively small
number of people, and it was only second in its
consequences to the memorable passage of the
wilderness from Egyptian bondage.
Zerubbabel held authority from the Persian
government as a sort of satrap in the country
where his ancestors had been kings, but he was
subject to the military power of the sovereign.
He made it his first business to restore the altar
and revive the worship of Jehovah on Mount Sion,
and his next duty to rebuild the temple on its old
foundations. He found the people not only im
poverished, but apathetic. They had relapsed
into the old ways and felt little of the inspiration
that had been nourished among the fervent souls
by the streams of Babylon. There was even
13

194 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
jealousy and hostility to be encountered, and it
Avas many years before the task of rebuilding the
temple was completed. During this period of
difficulty and discouragement two men ventured
again to assume the character of prophet. Haggai
endeavored to rouse the people from then: apathy
and to inflame their zeal, and Zechariah, the author
of the first eight chapters only of the book bearing
his name, set forth in visions the appeals and
promises that Avere to excite the hopes and stimu
late the efforts of Israel in a time of new trial.
It was after the completion of the second temple
that the complicated service was established, with
the various functions and vestments of priests and
Levites, the formal feasts and sacrifices, the litur
gical and musical accompaniments, and all forms
and ceremonies, which later writers Avere fond of
tracing back to David and Solomon, and in some
measure even to Moses. The laAv was also still
further developed on the lines laid doAvn by the
priests in their exile, and in this work Ezra ap
pears to have taken a prominent part. These
facts need to be kept in mind when we read the
writings of a later time which relate to events of
days still earher. Everything relating to laws and
ordinances, and to the forms and appurtenances
of worship, even from the sojourn in the wilder
ness of Sinai, received its color and much of its

THE RETURN AND RESTORATION 195
substance from Avriters saturated with the influence
of the priesthood of the second temple and look
ing upon the past through the haze of that in
fluence. It Avas now that the authority of the high-priest
was first established and traced back to Aaron,
who, as the source of the priesthood, was as myth
ical as Moses in the character of the law-giver.
Zerubbabel had been recognized as the " Prince "
of his people, and there was a disposition in some
quarters to regard him as that scion of the house
of David which was to usher in the reign of peace
and righteousness ; but the reality was far different
from the dreams of the prophets. There are faint
indications, chiefly in the visions of Zechariah,
of a schism between the secular power, represented
by the "Prince," and the ecclesiastical power,
embodied in the high-priest, and the latter was
destined to prevail. The fate of Zerubbabel is
shrouded in mystery. He disappears in silence
and darkness, and Avith him the line of David fell
into obscurity if not into extinction. The attempt
in later times to trace it through a chaos of broken
genealogies was hardly successful. But with the
disappearance of Zerubbabel from the scene,
Joshua, the son of Jozadak, appears as absorb
ing such secular power as was left to the Jews
by the Persian government, and from that time

196 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the lineal descent of the authority of the high-
priest was recognized. But the native rule at
Jerusalem was a hierarchy, with little secular
power. As a nation Israel was dead. Its vi
tality was absorbed in Judaism as a religious
system.

XXXIV
MAKING AN ECCLESIASTICAL CAPITAL
The Persian authorities appear to have given
little attention to Avhat was going on in Judea so
long as their power was not resisted or ques
tioned. Many of the Jews who remained in the
East kept up friendly communication with their
old home and furnished substantial aid to those
who were striving to repair its broken fortunes.
They showed the genius for profiting by their op
portunities that has characterized their descendants,
and kept in favor with the ruling class better than
some of those descendants have done. Some of
them held offices of more or less trust and confi
dence, though implying a certain menial relation.
Among the devout who had remained in exile
was one Nehemiah, who in the memoirs which
have been preserved represents himself as the
cupbearer of Artaxerxes (Longamanus) at Shu
shan (Susa). He obtained from that monarch a
commission to go to Jerusalem and rebuild its
ancient walls, which still lay in ruins, though
eighty or ninety years had passed since the re-

198 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
turn from captivity. With this he received a
certain degree of administrative authority as the
representative of the Persian government.
Nehemiah met with even more obstruction in
his enterprise of reconstructing the walls than had
been encountered in restoring the temple. The
jealousy of those who had remained in the country
during the captivity, and especially of the influ
ential class in the old Samaritan province, who
had formed a close alliance with some of the
priesthood at Jerusalem, proved a serious hin
drance. There were intrigues to seduce Nehemiah
from his undertaking, threats of violent interfer
ence against which he had to guard, and even rep
resentations to the court at Susa, that he was
designing to set himself up as a king in Judea.
The people were subject to severe exactions for
the Persian tribute, and the cost of the construc
tions about Jerusalem added to their discontent.
But Nehemiah thwarted all the efforts of his op
ponents and overcame all difficulties, and the com
pletion of the walls was celebrated with great
ceremony about 440 B.C. The genealogies and
statistics of families given in the memoirs of this
officer, and repeated with variations in the Book
of Chronicles, are far from accurate, and the figures
are, as usual, much exaggerated.
But the real importance of Nehemiah's adminis-

MAKING AN ECCLESIASTICAL CAPITAL 199
tration lay in its effect upon the religious tendency
of the time. Jerusalem became an ecclesiastical
capital. Those connected with the hierarchy were
a privileged class, and absorbed such secular
power as was left to local authority. Policy was
directed to establishing the exclusiveness of the
Jewish people and maintaining their distinctive
solidarity. For this the practice of circumcision
was insisted upon as a rite of great importance,
and stress was laid upon a strict observance of the
Sabbath, which had not previously been much
regarded, though formally prescribed in the
"law." But more than all, marriage with those
not of the Hebrew blood and religion was inter
dicted, as the chief cause of lapses into idolatry,
or of laxness in the national faith. Observances,
ceremonies, and rigid requirements were multi
plied, and the whole tendency was opposed to
the broad spirit of the great prophets and
threatened to stifle it.
This did not proceed from deliberate purpose
on the part of Nehemiah, so much as it was a con
sequence of the policy instituted by him, in what
he believed to be the interest of his people, worked
out later and by narrower minds. He was an
organizer, and an administrative officer under
Persian authority, and as such did not retain the
sympathy of the priestly class. Tobiah, the Sa-

200 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
maritan leader of the opposition which had given
him so much trouble, was allied by marriage with
the high-priest Eliashib, at Jerusalem, and dur
ing an absence of Nehemiah at the Persian capital
he was installed in the precincts of the temple, and
Avas in danger of acquiring ascendancy at Jeru
salem. This would have meant a relaxing of the
law and a toleration of mixed marriages and of
alien forms of worship, but the prompt return of
the " governor " checked this movement, and he
set about enforcing restrictions and requirements
more vigorously than before. He virtually fixed
the direction of the Judaic tendency, but he ex
cited the antipathy of the priestly class.
One. effect of this antipathy, or, to put it less
strongly, of this lack of sympathy, was an effort to
transfer some of the credit of Nehemiah's work to
another. While he had a fanatical regard for the
Torah as it then was, he was a layman, and nom
inally a secular officer. He left an account of his
work, undoubtedly authentic, but in the next cen
tury the Book of Ezra was compiled on the model
of the memoir of Nehemiah, attributing to the
priest and scribe a generous part of the work per
formed by the prefect of Persian authority. He,
too, was represented as deriving large official
poAvers from Artaxerxes, and as taking a leading-
part in establishing the observances of the law

MAKING AN ECCLESIASTICAL CAPITAL 201
and enforcing severe measures against mixed mar
riages. The book bearing the name of Ezra Avas
made up of inconsistent material, which the author
failed to make harmonious, and is entitled to httle
credence as a historical document ; but there is no
reason to doubt that a priest or scribe of that
name conducted one of the bands Avhich at inter
vals followed the main body of returning exiles to
Jerusalem. If the part of the book relating to
that event is authentic, he antedated Nehemiah
by several years, but the only thing that is either
certain or important is that this Ezra took an
active part in the literary Avork of developing the
Torah. He probably took little or no part in
administration, and is not entitled to muoh of the
dubious credit of a stringent application of the
laAv. At all events it was during this period — near
the middle of the fifth century B.C. — that the code
thereafter deemed sacred and embodied in the so-
called books of Moses was completed and promul
gated, substantially as we have it now. The old
Book of the Covenant of the Jehovist writer,
and the consecrated " ten words " of the Elohist,
the second version of the law " found in the tem
ple " in the days of Josiah, and the Levitical com
pilation of the captivity, Avere retained and ampli
fied Avith added prescriptions on various subjects,

202 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
some of which may have been new, but many of
which were old, and the whole was Avoven, or
patched, into the narrative already existing of the
Exodus and the passage through the wilderness.
Like all compilations of that and earlier time, it
was done without skill and with little effort to
avoid repetitions, or even to efface inconsisten
cies, and the attempts to adjust the old narrative
to new requirements were rather clumsy. The
Moses legend had been growing and continued to
groAV, but so far as it is contained in the Penta
teuch, it was finaUy fixed at this time. According
to the record concerning Ezra the scribe, there
was a formal promulgation of the laAV by a reading
of the book in the presence of the people. The
reading Avas attended and followed by much cere
mony, the establishment of a feast, and the bind
ing of the people by a new covenant.

xxxv
LAST OF THE PEOPHETS
Not only were the last additions made to the
"law of Moses " at this time, but the book of the
prophets of Jehovah was closed. The last of their
sacredly preserved utterances appeared under the
name of no living man. Malachi is a corruption
of Maleaki, " my messenger," which served to
shroud in mystery this final warning. It appeared
in the time of Nehemiah, and is peculiarly charac
teristic of the spirit of that day, laying stress
upon the observances that were to separate the
Jews from the rest of the world. No longer were
the iniquities of the time characterized as the sins
of a nation, to be punished by national calamity.
There was no nation. The glorious dream of
Isaiah, of the restoration of Israel as a power of
the earth, which should draw other nations to its
benign sway, of the exaltation of Jehovah's wor
ship to a universal religion of humanity, had faded
away as a narrow ecclesiasticism asserted itself.
There Avere minute prescriptions of law to be sedu
lously observed, sacrifices and feasts must not be

204 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
neglected, faithful provision must be made from
the people's substance for the support of priests
and Levites and all the throng of the temple dev
otees, and the rites peculiar to Judaism must be
insisted upon as essential to righteousness.
All this Avas exclusive and narrowing. It tended
to bring Jehovah again into the compass of the
Deity of a tribe or of a sect, and it led to bigotry
and intolerance. Phariseeism Avas born of the
spirit of Ezra and of Malachi. All hope of the
union of the two branches of the house of Israel
was stifled, and the Samaritan turned his back
upon Sion and worshipped God on Mount Geri
zim, according to what he considered as the true
traditions of the fathers. The advantage of Jeru
salem was in its temple and its organized system,
which, after centuries of new vicissitudes, were yet
again to become the focus for relighting the flame
of a religion of humanity. But in that interval
Judaism was to become incrusted with formalism,
smothered in ceremonies and observances, and
swathed more and more in its own exclusiveness.
In all the centuries of its existence it has never
drawn to itself, but has been continually exclud
ing and repelling, and yet it has maintained in its
core a steady and fervid vitality which has made it
the marvel of longevity in human history.
One notable contribution was made by the

LAST OF THE PROPHETS 205
Maleaki to the leaven which was to work with
varying intensity through the subsequent religious
ferment. He dealt with the sins of the people as
personal offences, and a new theory of retribution
Avas necessary, for there was no nation to reward
or to punish. Hence the " great and terrible day
of the Lord " assumed a new aspect, Avhen the
Avicked should be burned as stubble and trodden
as ashes under foot, but the righteous who feared
the name of the Lord and kept his law should go
forth and gambol as calves of the staU. Elijah
was to appear as the forerunner of that day. The
conception was vague, but it was a germ that was
to develop through the apocalyptic and eschato
logical writings, and blossom in the earliest doc
trines of Christianity.
Another germ that was to contribute to the
same nursery of the most potent religion of later
times was derived from Persia through the contact
of the exiled Hebrews with the system of Lan.
That was the germ of the demonology and angel-
ology which was destined to a wonderful efflores
cence. The Jews were barren in mythological
ideas. Their conception of the Deity was varia
ble. At times it presents him as a terrible mon
ster, and at times almost as an overpowering and
pervading spirit, but rarely does he seem to be
accompanied or attended by other beings. Occa-

206 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
sionally in their tales and traditions there Avere
references to God going about in human form, or
to his messengers, or angels, sent abroad upon
some errand, and even to the " sons of God," as a
company of attendants. In a few instances there
is reference to one of these as a carping critic, or
" adversary," under the name of Satan. But these
notions were incongruous with the general theol
ogy of the Hebrews, and were picked up from
contact with other nations. Persia had a system
of doctrine in which the powers of good and evil,
more or less clearly personified, were arrayed
against each other, and contended for the mastery
of the earth and the possession of its inhabitants.
It Avas from this source through the contact of
Judaism, rather than from Judaism itself, that the
early and later Christians derived much of the
imagery and symbolism of their faith.

XXXVI
LITEEAEY DEPEESSION
During the Persian domination what came to
be regarded as the sacred scriptures of the He
brews were substantiaUy completed. Additions
were stiU made to the coUection of Psalms, espe
cially of the hymns and songs of praise used in the
temple service, and the practice continued of at
tributing the chief part of that collection to David,
as the Proverbs were attributed to Solomon, and
as Moses came to be credited with the authorship
of the books of the law. The Book of Esther,
Avhich is devoid of either religious or historical
value, and gives a purely fictitious account of the
origin of the Purim, belongs to the earlier part of
this period. Tavo later productions, Daniel and
Ecclesiastes, were, after much doubt and hesita
tion, included in the " canonical " scriptures.
Literary activity in any fruitful sense of the
word was stifled when the political Ufe had gone
out of the nation and the priest had gained as
cendancy in place of the prophet. The language
itself became ossified, and its use was confined

208 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
mainly to the priests and scribes, the Aramaic
taking its place in the common speech of the
people. It was in this barren time that a Levite
scribe undertook to revamp the history of the de
ceased nationality of Israel in the Book of
Chronicles, making free use of genealogies and
previous annals, and carving the events of six
centuries to fit the narrow standard of his time
and his class. The vapid and sterile character of
his narrative has not prevented it from having
sufficient credence to make it very misleading for
those who have taken it as history. The same
writer compiled the books of Ezra and Nehemiah
from the genuine memoirs of the latter and the
supposititious ones of the former, and thereby con
tinued his task of distorting and confusing events.
Another form of pernicious activity Avith the
pen consisted in arranging, or deranging, previous
writings, making glosses and comments upon
them, and copying them Avith various degrees of
misconception and inaccuracy. The Avorks of the
greatest prophets were by this process made inco
herent and disordered, and were doctored by sup
pressions and interpolations. Faults of copying
were innumerable, and often marginal notes were
included in the text, while a mistaken meaning
was given to many passages by a change of words,
or even of letters. Perhaps all this has contrib-

LITERARY DEPRESSION 209
uted to the close study, as it certainly has to the
Avide range of exegesis, Avhich these writings have
undergone during the subsequent ages. While
the real substance and truth of the scriptures have
thereby been obscured, they have not been made
inaccessible. From this time the literary spirit of the Jews
was chiefly absorbed in expositions of the law and
the production of the tangled Avildemess of the
Targums, the Midrashim, and the Talmud. The
long period of rabbinical lore set in. While the
liberal spirit of Greece was expanding in poetry,
philosophy, and art, in all that civilizes society
and embellishes life, the genius of Israel was un
dergoing an artificial atrophy. It was bandaged
and swathed and plastered with gums, but it Avas
never completely mummified. Its persistent vital
ity could not be extinguished, and after various
spasmodic eruptions it was destined to break
forth with an energy, with a direction, and with
consequences never dreamed of by the prophets
in their most exalted moments, though proceeding
from the fires that glowed in their ardent souls.

14

xxxvn
THE ALEXANDEIAN VEESION
The later history of the Jews as a people has
Uttle relation to the purpose of this volume. After
the conquest of Asia Minor and Lower Egypt by
Alexander, and the destruction of the Persian em
pire, Palestine was harried by contests between
the rulers of the Egyptian and the Syrian prov
inces of the Macedonian power. Many Jews were
carried captive to the new Grecian capital of
Alexandria, where a Uberal measure of freedom
was accorded to them, and where they soon formed
a flourishing colony. A somewhat similar colony
grew up at Antioch, the new Grecian capital of
Syria. At both these points there Avas not only
more poUtical freedom than at Jerusalem, Avhere
the high-priests were permitted to hold local sway
under the Greek governors, but more rehgious and
inteUectual freedom. In fact under this freedom
Alexandria became the chief centre of mental and
moral activity for the Jews.
By force of circumstances it had to be admitted
that worship could be conducted elseAvhere than at

THE ALEXANDRIAN VERSION 211
Jerusalem, and otherAvise than under the direction
of the temple priests, and there was of necessity a
relaxing of some of the observances of the law.
Out of this situation grew the synagogue, the germ
of which had been started by Ezekiel in the Jew
ish quarter of Babylon during the captivity, and
the synagogue not only came to supersede the
temple but to found the church. In the course of
a generation Greek became the language of com
mon use among the dispersed, especially at Alex
andria, where they were cut off from Aramaic, as
well as from the language of their fathers, which
had virtually become a dead and consecrated
tongue. Then came the need of a translation of
the law, and of the other books deemed sacred,
which were essential to the maintenance of their
rehgion. It was probably the first direct transla
tion from one language to another, and it had aU
the imperfections of a new experiment.
First, about the middle of the third century B.C.
the Torah was rendered into Greek at Alexandria,
and divided into five books, with the names Avhich
they have borne ever since, and the coUection as a
whole was called the Pentateuch or five volumes.
The obscurities of the original were made more
obscure by misunderstanding and by a propensity
to use words of one language Avhich corresponded
to those of the other in a general way, with little

212 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
regard for shades of meaning. It was rather a
transcription from one tongue to another than a
translation of the meaning of one into the other,
and yet strange liberties were sometimes taken
with the original to suit ideas of the transcriber.
Additions of other books were made from time to
time in much the same style, until what is known
as the Septuagint version of the Bible was pro
duced, with the three divisions of the Torah, or
law, contained in the Pentateuch ; the Nibiim, or
prophets, Avhich included books of a legendary and
historical character ; and the Chetubim, or " writ-
ings," called in the Greek version " hagiographa,"
or holy Avritings.
The name Septuagint sprang from a character
istic legend, spread abroad two or three centuries
after the first translations were made, to the effect
that Ptolemy Philadelphus, being impressed with
the sacredness and value of the Hebrew law and
prophets, and the importance of having them trans
lated for the great Ubrary at Alexandria, sent to
Eleazer, the high-priest at Jerusalem, for learned
scribes to perform this task. Seventy-two of these,
six for each tribe — -no longer existent— were sent
to the enlightened monarch and treated by him
with great consideration. Each one in a separate
cell made the entire translation in seventy-two
days, and the work of all corresponded to a dot,

THE ALEXANDRIAN VERSION 213
affording indubitable evidence that the whole was
inspired and had all the sanctity of the original.
It is Avonderful how long this "pious " fiction was
treated seriously, but it was only a development of
the same characteristic which attributed the laAv in
all stages of its groAvth to Moses, and finally cred
ited to him the actual authorship of the Pentateuch,
and which gave the poetry and music of the nation
to David and its Avisdom to Solomon. It was the
same characteristic which in later efforts to exalt
the scriptures of the Jews, and to impress upon the
Greeks and Egyptians the sanctity of the race
from which they sprang, invented new stories of
Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, and of various
prophets, and boldly forged and falsified citations
from Greek literature paying homage to them.
Common honesty is a product of the exigencies
and the scrutiny of modern civilization, and a
scrupulous regard for truth is a late achievement
of mankind not yet perfected. Disingenuousness
and craft are not less characteristic of the oriental
than of the occidental mind, whether in ancient or
modern times. In this respect the Semitic race
did not differ widely from those with which it was
related, unless in a superior keenness and persist
ency. What is called the Septuagint version of the
Jewish scriptures contained many variations from

214 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the original text, many imperfect and misleading
translations, and it was the product of different
hands at different times. Additions were made to
it after the beginnmg of the Christian era, and it
contained several books Avhich Avere ultimately re
jected. But it Avas the Bible of the Jews, not only
in Egypt but in Asia Minor, and it became the
Bible of the first Christians. Doubtless its accept
ance by the latter stimulated a reaction against
it among devout Jews, who then discovered its
faults and imperfections, and reverted to their
ancient texts. These had become various and
more or less corrupt, but in process of time an
accepted text was established, and a HebreAv ver
sion of the Old Testament displaced the Septu
agint as the basis of later translations.

XXXVIII
A NEW AGONY AND ITS EESULT
While the Jews of Alexandria were translating
the scriptures and magnifying them with fabulous
stories about their origin, and even subjecting
them to fanciful exegesis to win converts to their
faith, the priests at Jerusalem continued to nurse
the exclusive spirit of Judaism. Palestine was
torn by the contest for its possession between
Egypt and Syria ; but after Antiochus the Great
brought it under the sway of the latter it had the
benefit of a liberal policy for a time. The only
notable literary production of the period, "the
Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach," though held
in high esteem, was not in the end admitted to the
category of sacred books. It was only Avhen the
tyranny and persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes,
toward the middle of the second century B.C.,
brought on a slow torture which caused a fierce
revulsion and aroused some of the ancient warUke
spirit of the race, that a late addition to those
books was made.
The old tendency of the Hebrew race to divide

216 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
appeared under the terrible pressure. Some Avere
repelled by the stern Puritanism and rigid require
ments of the hierarchy of the " holy city." They
Avere also attracted by the liberal spirit and easy
going practices of the Greeks, and reacUly fell
away from the ancient faith. Antioch was be
coming a city of splendor and luxury, fascinating
to the worldly minded, and the Syrian monarch
had favors and rewards for those who attached
themselves to his service. When it came to a
choice between the worldly advantages of submis
sive loyalty to the sovereign and the suffering of
persecution for fidelity to religious faith, the usual
result foUowed. The indifferent, the time-serving,
the self-indulgent, accepted the comfortable course
of acquiescence, while in the earnest and devoted
the spirit of resistance avrs aroused eAren unto
martyrdom. The blood of the martyrs Avas first
made fruitful by Antiochus Epiphanes, and those
martyrs Avere the faithful Jews of more than a cen
tury and a half before the Christian era.
The Hellenizing party got control of the high-
priesthood, and the last representative of the line
of Zadok Avas assassinated. Antiochus Avas pos
sessed with the mad purpose of exterminating the
ancient religion of Israel. Some of its most cher
ished rites Avere made capital offences, and its
ordinary practices Avere suppressed with cruel pen-

A NEW AGONY AND ITS RESULT 217
alties. Faithful Jews were driven out or deported
from Jerusalem and its environs, and every out
rage was committed upon the city and the temple.
An image of the Olympian Zeus was set up be
hind the great altar, and the observances of the
Greek worship were ruthlessly forced upon those
who detested it. It seemed as though the God of
the Hebrews had forsaken them in their dire dis
tress. The promise of national glory as a reward
for righteousness had failed, perhaps on account
of the perverse persistency of so many in unright
eousness. The doctrine that the wicked were
doomed to suffer and perish, while those who
obeyed the commands of Jehovah Avould find rec
ompense in comfort and long life, seemed to be
belied by experience. But ever in a remnant of
the race faith in the God of Jacob was indom
itable. At last the desperate revolt against intolerable
persecution found leadership in the old priest
Mattathiah and his five sons, and from these
sprang that redoubtable warrior, Judas Macca-
bseus, who raUied the fighting spirit of his race in
the mountains and fastnesses of Judea, drawing to
himself the ardent and devoted patriots, not of a
nation but of a religion, as David had drawn the
disaffected and the outlaws of his day. It Avas to
stimulate and inspire this heroic band that the

218 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Book of Daniel appeared, from a source now un-
knoAvn and probably shrouded in mystery at the
time. It Avas not historical and it was not pro
phetic in the old sense. It was partly fictitious,
largely allegorical, and in its conclusion it was
what came to be called apocalyptic ; but in rela
tion to the events of the time its main purpose is
plain. It was intended to show what Jehovah
could do and would do against all odds, for those
who were faithful to him, and, if it departed from
facts in relating what he had done, it was true to
the faith that inspired it. The fiction was illus
trative. In the aUegorical representation of the
nations and rulers of the past there was much
historical inaccuracy, but it served the purpose of
leading up effectively to the monstrous deeds of
Antiochus Epiphanes, and depicting their conse
quences. But the greatest need in the struggle was some
new hope, some new promise of restoration.
Never in the long history of the race and the va
ried development of its religion had the Hebrew
mind opened to a belief in the immortality of the
human soul. No teacher or priest or prophet had
ventured to promise recompense or threaten pun
ishment beyond this life. No psalmist in his
most depressed or most exalted moments dreamed
of happiness beyond the grave. In this religion

A NEW AGONY AND ITS RESULT 219
there was little that was soft or sentimental, noth
ing visionary that reached beyond the horizon of
the earth. It was a masculine religion and a re
ligion of this world. In the terrible crisis, when
Judas, " the hammer of God," raised his arm
against the Grecian tyrant of Syria, faith de
manded an outlet from this iron doom. Though
the easy belief of the imaginative Greeks and
speculative Persians in a life beyond the tomb
was still resisted, as repugnant to the Semitic
mode of thought, in the mystic visions of Daniel
the doctrine of resurrection was born, and there
was promise that " many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shaU aAvake, some to everlasting
life and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
The present purpose has been only to indicate
the events attencUng the production of the book
that conquered a place in the sacred literature of
the Hebrews long after it was virtually closed to
new accessions. The fact that it was admitted
shows how powerful its effect must have been, and
what an enduring hold it took upon the minds
of the devout JeAvs. To this, no doubt, its mys
terious origin, its mystic character, and its neAv
doctrine powerfully contributed.
One later book indeed there was, which the
variable canon of the custodians of scripture final
ly alloAved to stand in the Hebrew Bible, but it

820 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
has no clearly ascertainable relation to historical
events. Judas triumphed over the oppressor, took
possession of the beloved capital of his people,
and restored the worship of the Most High in the
temple. He became in effect ruler of the Judean
principality, and, after a further struggle in which
his brother Jonathan played a conspicuous part
as a Avarrior, its autonomy was established. Its
first acknowledged head was the high-priest
Simon, another of the five sons of Mattathiah,
Avhose sovereignty began in 143 B.C. This period
of virtual independence lasted until the Eoman
conquest of Asia Minor by Pompey, B.C. 63, and
Avas characterized by the appearance of Apocalyp
tic and Messianic writings of much significance,
and the development of the sects of Sadducees,
Pharisees, Essenians, and other products of the
irrepressible tendency to schism.
AU these have no direct relation to the Old
Testament literature, but one of the gems of the
collection, from a secular point of view, was pro
duced later, perhaps, than any of these. It is the
philosophical prose poem to which the first Greek
translator in the second century a.d., gave the
name Ecclesiastes, as the equivalent of the four
Hebrew consonants, usually rendered Koheleth, of
uncertain meaning, which stand in the original as
the designation of the speaker. The date of its

A NEW AGONY AND ITS RESULT 221
production cannot be fixed by internal or external
evidence, but it was probably after the struggles
of the Asmonean family were over, and during the
period of comparative calm that followed. It Avas
one of the last books to be admitted to the canon
ical scriptures, on account of its heretical and
worldly tone, and it may owe its place therein to
the solemn admonitions of its closing chapter,
whose cadences are so exquisitely rendered in our
English version.

BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

THE COLLECTION AS A WHOLE
The thirty-nine books Avhich constitute the Old
Testament Avere not finaUy accepted as the canon
of Jewish scriptures until two or three centuries
after the beginning of the Christian era. The
title of the collection comes from an incorrect
Latin rendering of the Greek equivalent of the
HebreAv for the " ancient covenant," the theo
cratic system being based upon an assumed agree
ment betAveen Jehovah and his people Israel.
The first books to be held sacred were those
which contained the law, and these Avere collected
in substantially their final form in the time of
Ezra the scribe, and probably by him. Later,
under Nehemiah, the prophets Avere added, in
cluding the legendary and historical books from
Joshua to Kings, as well as what have since been
designated as the greater, and the Minor Proph
ets. The other Avritings were added from time to
time, with many variations, and there were diverse
opinions as to Avhat were to be deemed sacred and
what not. 15

226 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
The Greek version of Alexandria began Avith the
law, Avhich seems already to have had the fivefold
division, and the present names were given to the
several parts, while the Avhole was called the
Pentateuch. But when the collection knoAvn as
the Septuagint was completed, it contained a
number of books which Avere ultimately rejected
from the canon. These Avere the tAvo Books of
Esdras, which followed Chronicles ; Tobit and
Judith, placed after Nehemiah ; The Wisdom of
Solomon and The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of
Sirach, also called Ecclesiasticus, after The Song
of Songs ; Baruch, after Jeremiah ; Susanna, after
Daniel ; and the three Books of the Maccabees, at
the end of the collection. After the canon Avas es
tablished these Avere often put together at the end
of the volume, and designated as Apocrypha (or
" Eejected"), and for a long time they Avere quoted
as in a measure authoritative.
The different Hebrew versions of the scriptures
contained material variations, and it was several
centuries after the canon Avas agreed upon before
there was a fixed text universally accepted by the
Jews, and finally adopted by the Christians. This
differed Avidely in many points from the Greek
version, and no man can tell Iioav far both may have
Avandered from the original material, through errors
of transcription, exegetical variations, and delib-

THE COLLECTION AS A WHOLE 227
erate suppressions, interpolations, and perversions.
The canon itself Avas a matter of gradual consensus
rather than formal adoption. Josephus, in the first
century a.d., speaks of the sacred books of the Jews
as twenty-two in number ; but Samuel, Kings, and
Chronicles were then rated as single books, Euth
was attached to Judges, and Lamentations to
Jeremiah. Several books now in the Old Testa
ment were excluded for a long time on various
grounds. Ezekiel Avas objected to as not in har
mony Avith the law, as finally determined ; The Song
of Songs, on account of its worldly and possibly
sensual quality ; Proverbs, on account of inconsist
encies ; Esther, for its lack of religious character,
and Ecclesiastes, as heretical in its tone. These
objections were gradually reasoned or explained
away. The arrangement of the books, beyond
those having a chronological relation, was variable
until after the final fixing of the contents of the
collection. No attempt Avill be made here at a close analy
sis or a critical examination of these books. Any
thing like accuracy would be impossible, all sorts
of disputed matters would be broached, and the
process Avould be confusing and tiresome. The
purpose is only to give a general idea of when and
how they were made up, and to state, as clearly
and briefly as possible, their character and signifi-

223 THE JE WISH SCRIPTURES
cance, so far as it seems necessary to a clear un
derstanding. The object is not to impress opinions
upon the reader, but to enable him to form his
OAvn, and to add, if possible, to his interest in the
process.

II
GENESIS
There is no reason to suppose that the Book
of Genesis underwent any material change after
it took its place, as a kind of historical introduc
tion to the Torah, in the time of Ezra. We
probably have it substantially as it came from the
hands of the compiler, who in the reign of Heze
kiah, at Jerusalem, a feAV years after the fall of
Samaria and the destruction of the Northern King
dom, undertook to unite into one narrative the two
accounts of the origin and early history of the race,
which are known to students of the subject as the
Jehovist and Elohist " documents," respectively.
The former, as we have already seen, Avas produced
in the Northern Kingdom in the time of Jehu, not
far from 850 B.C., and the latter, quite indepen
dently, at Jerusalem, perhaps tAventy or thirty years
later. The Jehovist made liberal use of the col
lection of legends of the patriarchs, which had
been in existence since the days of Jeroboam I.,
and the compiler of the duplex version seems also
to have had this in his hands, as well as other

230 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
material of which there is no trace except in his
use of it.
The process of combination was so inartistic
that the varied materials are quite distinguisha
ble. Inconsistencies are not Avholly effaced, inco-
herencies are frequent, and two or three versions
of the same tradition are sometimes interwoven
with incongruous effect. The opening account of
the creation, occupying the first chapter and the
first three verses of the second chapter, is that of
the Elohist. It is based upon the Chaldaic cos
mogony, and contains the system of six days for
labor and the seventh for rest, which was derived
from the Babylonians, and was the earliest basis
of the Jewish observance of the Sabbath.
The Jehovist account of the creation is taken up
at chapter ii., verse 4, and is in some respects essen
tially different from the other, though based upon
common Chaldaic tradition. It contains the story
of the Garden of Eden, the tempter and the fall,
and that of Cain and Abel, and it consequently
holds the germ of the doctrine of original sin.
The Elohist knew nothing of the first couple and
the baleful experience that doomed their progeny,
but represents man as having been created " male
and female," like the other animals, without re
striction of number. When his account is re
sumed at chapter v., it proceeds to give the

GENESIS 231
" generations of Adam," which in Chaldaic was
a generic term for man, as EAre, in the other ac
count, was the " mother of Ufe." Seth Avas the
only son of Adam spoken of by the Elohist, but
the genealogy of the descendants of Seth is only
a variant of that of the descendants of Cain given
in the other account, and both are based upon the
mythical antediluvian dynasties of the Chaldeans.
The two accounts of the deluge, based upon
the same Babylonian fable, differed little ex
cept in regard to Noah and his family after the
flood, though in combining the two some con
fusion was produced in regard to numbers and
periods of time. Noah figured in the old pa
triarchal legends, but only as a vine-dresser and
the father of husbandry. There was nothing in
these of the flood. It was the Jehovist who first
turned that to account as a means of destroying
the first breed of mankind for their Avickedness,
one righteous person with his family being saAred
to replenish the earth. He represents Noah as
building an altar and making sacrifices to placate
the Deity after the flood, Avhile we owe to the
Elohist the story of the covenant and the boAv of
promise. The latter writer was much addicted to genealo
gies, of which there was greater store at Jeru
salem than among the northern tribes, and from

232 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
this source is the passage beginning with chapter
x., which purports to give the origin of the various
peoples known to the writer as descendants of
Noah. The names are mainly those of places and
of tribes, and cover most of the geography within
the range of the writer's knoAvledge. His record
is broken by a fragment of older material con
taining the curious tale of the Tower of Babel,
and then a special genealogy of Shem is made to
lead up to the Abraham legend. Older than
either of these Avriters is the matter containing
the grosser passages, like the fragment concerning
the race of giants, the commerce of the sons of
God with the daughters of men, the drunkenness
of Noah, and the story accounting for the Moabites
and Ammonites as descendants of Lot, and con
sequently as in affinity with the descendants of
Abraham. Chapter xiv. is also regarded as very
ancient, and based upon a real historical tradition,
in which Abraham appears as the chief of a power
ful nomadic clan.
The folloAving chapter, relating the vision of
Abraham and the promise of a numerous progeny
to possess the land of Canaan, is apparently older
than the story of the migration from Ur of the
Chaldees in chapter xii., which is from the pen of
the Jehovist. The latter writer Avas the first to give
a religious turn to the caU of Abraham, and he laid

GENESIS 23K
special stress upon the consecration of Bethel. The
Elohist, to Avhom the seventeenth chapter mainly
belongs, was concerned to carry the rite of circum
cision back to Abraham and give it a religious
significance, as the seal and token of the coA'enant
Avith God, just as he connected the distinctively
Jewish obseiwance of the Sabbath Avith the Chal
daic account of the creation. The failure of the
compiler to efface the inconsistencies in his chief
material appears in two or three imperfectly
blended accounts of Ishmael, the progenitor of the
people of the desert, and two varying accounts of
the birth of Isaac. In the story of Sodom and the
destruction of the cities of the plain the oldest ma
terial comes to the surface Avithout much change.
A curious example of the way an old tradition
was divided and recombined may be noted, by way
of illustrating the ancient process of making books
which might come to be considered sacred. The
old patriarchal legends had a story of Abraham
passing his wife off as his sister with the Philistine
king of Gerar. The Jehovist made two applications
of this antique incident, one to Abraham and Sarah
in Eg3Tpt, and the other to Isaac and Eebekah at
Gerar, and the compiler retained all three of the
versions. The duplication of the same tradition
in connection with Abraham and Isaac also ap
pears in the contest over the wells and the naming

234 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of Beersheba, though the compiler made a slight
effort to gloss it over with the assumption that
the Philistines had filled up the wells of Abraham.
The traditions of the ancient clan of the Isaakel
Avere faint at best and had become mingled with
those of Abraham and Jacob.
The compiler of Genesis blended the tAvo ver
sions of Abraham's migrations and the birth of his
children in a rather perplexing manner, but the
idyllic tale of the marriage of Isaac and Eebekah,
the birth of Esau and Jacob, and the supplanting
of the elder of the twins by the younger can be
distinguished as the production of the Jehovist,
while the genealogist of Jerusalem furnished the
account of Abraham's second marriage with Ke
turah, and in general the " generations " of his off
spring, including the long list of descendants of
Esau in chapter xxxvi., Avhich separates the
mixed material leading up to the birth of the
tribes from the continuous and fairly harmonious
account of the "children of Israel" which folloAvs.
In the combining of the narratives of Jacob's
migrations, so much stress is laid upon the conse
cration of Bethel that it was described three times,
although it had already been once attributed to
Abraham. The journey to Haran and the mar
riage with the daughter of Laban, symbolic of the
relations of Svria Avith Palestine, Avere described

GENESIS 235
at length by the Jehovist from material furnished
by his predecessor, the author of the patriarchal
legends, but there are apparent traces of the other
document in the repetitions. It is noticeable that
the writer of Jerusalem, who Avas connected with
the temple, speaks of building an altar, where the
other describes the setting up of a pillar.
The Elohist had no hand in the systematic ac
count of Jacob's sons, beginning Avith chapter
xxxvii., and it was drawn by the Jehovist with
little variation from the patriarchal legends of the
time of Jeroboam I. These Avere Avritten after the
characteristics of the several tribes Avere fully de
veloped ; and their ethnological significance has
been considered in the earher part of this volume.
The compiler, Avriting after the Northern King
dom had passed away, and when there was hope
of reuniting the scattered tribes into one nation,
took little pains to subdue the strong Northern
tone and spirit of the narrative. The exaltation
of Joseph, the preference of Ephraim to Manas
seh, the almost scurrilous depreciation of Judah,
and the currying of favor Avith little Benjamin,
which was originally intended to detach it from
the Southern Kingdom after the division, are all
left as evidence that the old animosities had died
with the disasters of Samaria.
The story of Joseph in Egypt was doubtless

236 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
wrought mainly out of material furnished by Jero
boam, Avho had enjoyed high favor in that country ;
and in its main lines it corresponds with the old
Egyptian tale of the " Tavo Brothers." The experi
ence Avith Potiphar's wife is an incident common
to several oriental tales, Avhile dreams and inter
pretations thereof were stock material for this kind
of folk-lore. Vivid and realistic as these descrip
tions Avere made by the genius who first put in
form the old traditions of Israel and mingled in
them so much poetic radiance and ethnic value,
their only historic basis Avas the broad fact of the
refuge of the ancient tribe or tribes in Egypt, in a
time of protracted famine, and their continued so
journ there until they fell under oppression.
The so-called blessing of Jacob, in chapter xlix.,
probably did not belong to the original material,
but Avas interpolated at some stage of the process
of developing the record, though it is undoubtedly
an early production of the Northern Kingdom, por
traying the characteristics of the tribes from the
point of vieAV of the Ephraimites. Some of its ob
scurities give evidence of alteration to harmonize
Avith Judean views. It contains distinct allusions,
not only to the situation of the tribes, but to
events in their experience, and there is about as
much cursing as blessing in its tone. After the
old bitterness of tribal division had passed away,

GENESIS 237
the picture was developed, softened, and made more
harmonious in the farewell blessing attributed to
Moses at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy.
The compiler of the Book of Genesis left inter
nal evidence that his material was produced long
after the events to Avhich it Avas supposed to re
late, in such phrases as "unto this day," "the
Canaanite was then in the land," "before there
reigned any king over the children of Israel," etc.
The theological and moral conceptions are natu
rally those of the writers Avhose language was
adopted, and fortunately they were not essentially
modified in the processes of compiling and copy
ing to which these books Avere so long subjected.
A polytheistic tendency is observable in the old
est fragments, as in the references to the " sons of
God" who begot demi-gods or "men of renown,"
to the " men " who visited Abraham under the oaks
of Mamre and Lot in the city of Sodom, and the
" angels " who descended on the heights of Luz.
The harsh and gloomy conception of the Deity
Avhich was developed in the accounts of Moses ap
pears in the Jehovist's episodes of the Garden of
Eden, Cain and Abel, the destruction of mankind
by the flood, and the dispersion of the tower-
builders ; but, in the main, the Deity is embodied
in human form and endowed with human attri
butes only mildly exaggerated. He Avalks in the

238 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
garden in the cool of the day, he shuts Noah in
the ark, he goes doAvn to " see the city and tower
Avhich the children of men builded," and he goes
down to see whether the people of Sodom are as
bad as they are reported to be. In short, the con
ception is like that of children, and characteristic
of the childhood of the race.
The moral conceptions of the time of the writers
Avere equally crude. Acts which would now be
regarded as odious and repulsive are related with
a naive indifference to their moral quality ; fraud
ulent and deceitful practices are spoken of with
implied approbation, and the wickedness which
excited the resentment of the Almighty seems to
have consisted chiefly in the pride, presumption,
and violence of men, Avhen they set out to display
power and activity on their own account. This
was jealously treated as an attempt to rival divin
ity. In the thrice-told incident of the patriarch
and his wife in a strange land there is question
only of the man's safety, not of the Avoman's chas
tity. Abimelech's offence consisted in encroach
ing upon the husband's exclusive right, in the ori
ental sense. The ethical quality in Genesis is
hardly greater or higher than in the " Odyssey " of
Homer, but the book is a treasury in which the old
est traditions of the Hebrew race were stored, with
out art or skill, but with Avonderful compactness.

Ill
THE BOOKS CONTAINING THE LAW
The chief purpose in making the first collection
of books which came to be regarded as sacred
by the JeAvs, and by their tAvo lines of reUgious
heirs, Avas to embody the " laws " which had accu
mulated in an irregular mass during many genera
tions. While these Avere spoken of as " laws " and
" ordinances," and as " statutes," as weU as " com
mands," they Avere never regarded as enactments
to be enforced by secular authority, but as rules
of conduct haAang a divine sanction. They were
finaUy included, in a broken and scattered way,
in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy, but additions or repetitions are
found in the Book of Joshua, which properly be
longs to the same series. They were connected
Avith narrative passages, in part of older material
and in part specially designed to introduce or to
give stress to the various commands. Genesis is
associated with the leading purpose of these books
only through the " covenants " of Jehovah, or Elo
him, Avith Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the

240 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
promises by Avhich the people were bound by self-
interest to the observance of the commands made
in his name.
There is Uttle trace in these books of the
patriarchal legends, but the oldest of the nar
rative parts are derived mainly from the equally
ancient collection, the Wars of Jehovah, or the
Book of Jasher. It is not certain that Moses
figured in either of those repositories of antique
tradition, even as the leader of the deliverance
from Egyptian bondage, but he appeared in that
character in both the Jehovist and Elohist docu
ments, from which the first twenty-four chapters
of Exodus were mostly compiled. As a law-giver
he was a later development. The narrative which
leads up to the great scene at Mount Sinai is
mostly that of the Jehovist, but there are varia
tions and repetitions, and fragments of genealogy,
which betray the hand of the Elohist, and there
are also some traces of the still older material.
The triumphal song after the passage of the Eed
Sea, which is contained in chapter xv., has been
attributed to the Elohist writer, on account of the
magnifying of the sanctuary at Jerusalem, but
that can only be taken as evidence that it was not
the work of the Jehovist. Its language indicates
that it was later than either, and it was probably
introduced by one of the subsequent compilers.

THE BOOKS CONTAINING THE LAW 241
In style and subject it is similar to Psalms cv.
and cvi., and Uke them may have been part of
the floating material relating to the Exodus,
wrought out of the old oral traditions.
There is nothing strange in the famUiarity Avith
Egypt and its customs and traditions shoAvn by a
writer of the Northern Kingdom in the ninth cen
tury b.c. There Avas constant communication be
tAveen that country and Syria and Phoenicia, and
the great caravan route passed over the territory
of Israel. The horses and chariots of kings and
the luxurious appointments of princes came mostly
from Egypt. Solomon trafficked with the land of
the Nile and allied himself with its reigning fam
ily. Jeroboam was not the only political exile
who took refuge there, and of aU foreign lands it
contributed most to the knowledge possessed by
the earlier Hebrew Avriters. There Avas plenty of
material out of which to construct the story of the
escape from bondage, and some of it can be traced
to its origin in Egyptian fable.
The first chapters of Exodus are devoted largely
to magnifying the power of JehoA'ah, as a prelude to
the promulgation of his laAv. He is represented as
bringing disaster after disaster upon Egypt, punish
ing the innocent multitude for the Avrong-doing of
their rulers, avoAvedly as a display of terrible power.
The conception of the Deity contained, in these chap-
16

242 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
ters is not attractive, but it was that ofthe authors of
the first JeAvish laAv, and Avas calculated to impress
the people for whom they Avrote. It underwent some
modification in the process of developing the Torah.
The Book of the Covenant, originally embodied
in the Jehovist narrative, is contained in chapter
xx., verse 24, to chapter xxiii. 19 of the Book of
Exodus, AvhUe the Decalogue in the earlier part of
chapter xx. appeared in the Elohist document.
The writer Avho combined the tAvo primitive ac
counts included both these versions of Jehovah's
first commands to his people, and connected them
with the story of the aAvful demonstration on Mount
Sinai. Chapter xxiv. of Exodus is a later resume of
divine commands, and the narrative of events is
not taken up again Avith anything like continuity,
until we reach the tAventieth chapter of the Book
of Numbers.
Thus the beginning of the Jewish Torah, con
tained in the four central chapters of the Book of
Exodus, emanated almost simultaneously from the
sanctuary of the Northern prophets, of what is
sometimes called "the school of Elijah," in the
time of Jehu, and from the purlieus of the first
temple at Jerusalem in the days of Joash. It Avas
the subject of progressive development from that
time to the completion of the Pentateuch. Ncav
prescriptions were no doubt put in writing from

THE BOOKS CONTAINING THE LA W 243
time to time, but the first great promulgation of
the law was made in the time of Josiah and under
the influence of Jeremiah. It was then presented
in a formal and systematic way, indicative of stud
ied preparation, and in a style quite different from
that of the early narratives. It Avas in effect a
codification of what Avas henceforth to be regarded
as " the law," and Avas put in the form of state
ments by Moses of what Jehovah had commanded.
This code extends from chapter iv., verse 44, to
the end of chapter xxviii. of the Book of Deuter
onomy, and was probably not much changed in
later redactions.
The introductory chapters of Deuteronomy, in
Avhich Moses is portrayed as rehearsing to the peo
ple in the land of Moab the story of their previous
Avanderings, and announcing his commission to
declare the statutes and judgments of God for their
future guidance, and the three chapters folloAving
the statement of the law, in which he is represented
as impressing upon the people the importance of
its observance, and as writing it out as a parting
legacy to Israel, and also as devolving the leader
ship thereafter upon Joshua, were supplied sub
sequently as a framework of the system.
At the same or possibly a different time two
poems were appended to the book which are older
in composition than the main body of it. These

244 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
are knoAvn as the Song of Moses and the Bless
ing of Moses. The former, in chapter xxxn., is
considered by some as belonging to the material
of the old narratives, but it has the character
istics of the earlier psalms, and appears to be
long to the period of prophetic appeals and re
monstrances, when the people Avere subject to the
allurements of alien deities. The Blessing in
chapter xxxiii. is equally foreign to the context,
but wholly different in character and style from
the Song. It seems to have been a develop
ment and rectification of the so-called "blessing"
of Jacob, near the end of Genesis, more symmet
rical and finished in form and in a different tone.
It was probably Avritten after the fall of Samaria,
when the bitterness of the old division of the
tribes had been allayed by the misfortunes of
Ephraim, and the hope of reunion was still cher
ished. At all events, it is in a much softer spirit
than the ancient benediction put in the mouth of
the dying patriarch.
Between the tAvo poems and foUowing the second
one Ave find broken passages of narrative, Avinding
up the career of Moses and leaving the leadership
to Joshua. These are among the finishing touches
of the Pentateuch, applied after the various parts
of the Torah had been collected and woven together
in the time of Ezra.

THE BOOKS CONTAINING THE LA W 245
Meantime the Levitical law had been takin

o

form, beginning in the captivity, when Ezekiel in
dulged in visions of the restoration of Israel, the
reconstruction of the great sanctuary, the establish
ment of a regular and permanent priesthood, and
a highly developed system of the worship of Jeho
vah, as a safeguard for the future of the nation.
In the last nine chapters of the book bearing his
name the prophet set forth his ideal plan for the
division and distribution of the people, the re
building of the temple, the provision for the priests
and Levites, and the forms and observances of
worship in the time to come. He was particularly
concerned for the establishment of a regular hier
archy, the support of which should be a sacred
duty, and he laid down rules regarding offerings
and sacrifices. A provisional code, conforming to
the outline and general ideas of his vision of the
future temple and its service, was drawn up, if not
by him, surely under his influence. This consti
tuted the basis upon which the Levitical system
was developed, but its development was the work
of the priests, when the practical task of restoring
the temple had been accomplished and its service
was organized.
The first Levitical code, included in chapters
xviii. to xxvi. of the Book of Leviticus, was lib
erally expanded, and into it were gathered many

246 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
prescriptions regarding personal cleanliness and
health, public sanitary matters, social conduct
and general morality, according to the crude con
ceptions of the times in which they originated.
Numerous variations and repetitions indicate an
accumulation from the past rather than fresh pro
duction. In the final compilation of the books of
the law we find these scattered, with little regu
larity of form or coherency of statement, between
Exodus xxiv. and Numbers xx., and in the last
chapters of the latter book.
From the time of Josiah the effort to centralize
worship at Jerusalem and to exalt the temple as
an object of reverence was persistent, and that
idea Avas the main inspiration of Ezekiel's visions
when he dreamed of the restoration. It was
strongly impressed upon those who led the re
turning exiles from Babylon, and Avho organized
the service of the new temple. The aim, never
lost sight of under Ezra and Nehemiah, was the
religious unification of the restored people, and
their exclusion from the seductive influences that
had led their fathers astray.
With this view the hierarchy was assiduously
built up, and its origin was associated with the
oldest traditions of the Hebrews. In fact, it was
attributed directly to the Deity, acting through
his first great prophet, Moses. Aaron, who was

THE BOOKS CONTAINING THE LAW 247
knoAvn by tradition to the earlier Avriters only as a
brother and counsellor of Moses, Avas made the
father of the priesthood and the first high-priest,
and he and his descendants were consecrated by
the Almighty to His own special service. The
Levites, who had become a considerable class, re
ceived a special sanction for their duties, and their
support was made a religious obligation by divine
injunction, derived from the mysterious antiquity
of the sojourn in the wilderness. The temple
itself, its inner sanctuary, its altar and sacrificial
appliances, were associated Avith the same remote
origin by creating a prototype for it in the Ark of
the Covenant and the Tent of Meeting.
Hence it was that elaborate descriptions of the
construction of the ark in the wilderness and of
its various appurtenances, and of the making of
rich vestments for the priests, together with pre
scriptions for rites, ceremonies, and observances,
proper to an organized priesthood, were woven
into the narrative of the sojourn in the desert of
Pharan. The combination of Egyptian, Phceni
cian, and Assyrian material and art Avas quite as
conspicuous as in the earlier descriptions of the
temple of Solomon. The writers Avere so much
more concerned for their purpose of getting the
solemn sanction of Jehovah through Moses for
their neAV ecclesiastical sjTstem, that they gave no

248 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
heed to the demands of probability. They dis
regarded the absurdity of supposing that in the
desert solitudes about Mount Sinai, the harassed
people could make offerings of acacia wood, rich
fabrics, costly metals, and precious stones, and
could work with Tyrian art the gorgeous par
aphernalia of a portable sanctuary and the ap
pliances of a systematic and complicated wor
ship. The descriptions Avhich begin in the tAventy-fifth
chapter of Exodus unquestionably date from the
establishment of the priesthood and service of the
second temple, and Avere intended to connect these
with a sacred origin in the wilderness. Between
the description given in the instructions to Moses
and its repetition in the account of their execu
tion there are some fragments of older narrative,
interspersed with repetition of commands and in
junctions. The episode of the golden calf may
have been intended as a Avarning against such of
fences as that of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who
set up a golden calf at each of the chief sanctu
aries of the Northern tribes, when he returned
from Egypt to become the ruler of the new king
dom. The continual stress laid upon commands
against idolatry and the worship of the gods of
Canaan evidently came from the bitter experiences
through which the people had already passed,

THE BOOKS CONTAINING THE LAW 249
when this tissue of Iuav and legend Avas finally
wrought. The description of the Tent of Meeting at the end
of the Book of Exodus served to furnish an intro
duction to the proclamation of the Levitical pre
scriptions as to offerings and sacrifices, and in
the course of their statement incidents are inter
spersed illustrative of their application. The dan
ger of any departure from their strict requirements
was impressed by the fate of the sons of Aaron,
when they offered " strange fire." The rules regard
ing food, cleanliness, leprosy, etc., were a hetero
geneous collection of the crude ideas of the priests,
in matters of health and personal habits, and their
interest is historical and not moral or scientific,
much less religious. The same may be said of the
curious trace of heathenism preserved in the ac
count of Azazel, or the Scapegoat.
The methods of Avorship by sacrifices, burnt of
ferings, etc., were those prevalent at the time among
all nations, and were based upon the conception
of the Deity as a dangerous being who must be
constantly placated. The formal code, first de
vised Avith reference to the restoration of the
temple and the establishment of the priesthood, is
introduced with an impressive exordium in the
eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. An anecdote il
lustrating the penalty for blasphemy is brought in

250 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
abruptly in chapter xxiv., and the last chapter of
the book is an addition of older substance. The
obvious diversity of material and the imperfect
way in which it was wrought together form a
striking corroboration of what can be otherwise
learned of the origin of the completed Torah of
the Jews.

IV
EPISODES AND FEAGMENTS. JOSHUA
The enumeration and classification which is
contained in the first chapters of the Book of
Numbers, and which gave that book its title, con
stitute an artificial scheme in which the figures
are greatly exaggerated. It was devised in or
after the time of the captivity, as an introduction
to the plan of setting apart the Levites and or
ganizing their seiwice as distinct from that of the
priests. The continual repetitions from the col
lection of "laAvs" in the hands of the compilers
indicate an anxiety on their part to discard nothing
upon which the stamp, " the Lord spake unto
Moses," had been put. Here and there a frag
ment of narrative apparently ancient is inter
jected, sometimes with the evident purpose of
enforcing some lesson and sometimes with no
evident purpose, except to preserve the fragments
that nothing be lost. In these Ave get occasional
glimpses of trouble in the camps in the Avildemess,
in which Jehovah interposed to punish those Avho
rebelled and to vindicate the authority of Moses.

252 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Whether there Avas any basis in ancient tradition
for the story of the revolt of Korah or not, it
seems to have been used to enforce the claims of
the descendants of Aaron to the exclusive func
tions of the priesthood, and to emphasize the
newly estabUshed distinction between those func
tions and the duties of the Levites.
The episode of Balaam, the prophet of Pethor
" by the Eiver," forms a quaint and interesting
passage in the Book of Numbers, beginning in the
twrenty-second chapter. It follows shortly after
the resumption of the narrative of the journey out
of the wilderness, which is here made up in part
by a fusion of the first accounts Avith the still old
er material of the Wars of Jehovah, and Avhich
contains one or two misplaced repetitions of the
ancient traditions, notably that of the Waters of
Meribah. The Israelites had tAvo entirely differ
ent traditions of Balaam. The one employed in
this episode represented him as a seer of high
renown, through whom the oracles of the Almighty
were uttered, though he belonged to a foreign and
heathen people, and there is an allusion to him in
the same character by the prophet Micah (chapter
vi. 5), Avhich was evidently based upon the story
in Numbers xxii.-xxiv. ; but chapter xxxi. of
Numbers speaks of Balaam's counsel as having
caused the children of Israel to trespass, and as

EPISODES AND FRAGMENTS. JOSHUA 253
having brought the plague upon them, and he is
there said to have been slain with the kings of
Midian. The two stories were certainly of different origin,
and the killing of the heathen sorcerer is stated
again in Joshua xiii. The grotesque touch about
the angel and the ass, which mars the otherAvise
dignified and poetical story of the appearance of
Balaam on the banks of the Arnon, is an interpo
lation, and was probably a perversion of something
in the later and unfavorable tradition, for that gave
rise to all manner of ludicrous representations of
the Mesopotamian seer. The interest and signifi
cance of the effort of the King of Moab to get the
greatest prophet of the time to curse Israel lies in
the picture it affords of the prevalent conception
of the powers and functions of the seer, and in the
specimens that are preseiwed in the story of the
vaticination current at the time it was written. It
is needless to add that the predictions regarding
the future of Israel, like those in the Benediction
of Jacob and the Blessing of Moses, were of Isra
elite origin, and were made after the establishment
of the kingdom. The narrative in which they are
incased is a patchwork from the Jehovist and Elo
hist documents and the Book of the Wars of Je
hovah. The ancient narrative is again interrupted with

254 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
an account of a second enumeration of the tribal
forces, no more authentic than the first and hav
ing a similar purpose, and repetitions from the
" laAvs " continue to be scattered along in an in
coherent fashion. Moses is represented as direct
ing the attacks upon the Midianites and the
Amorites on the east of the Jordan, and assigning
the acquisitions there to the Eeubenites and Gad-
ites and the Machirite branch of Manasseh, though
that region Avas in reality long occupied by all
Israel, and the conquest of territory to the Avest of
the Jordan Avas made much later. He is also de
scribed as giving full instructions regarding the
allotment of possessions in the " promised land,"
laying special stress upon provision for the Le
vites and for " cities of refuge," all of which be
longed to the ideal scheme of the restoration after
the captivity ; and it affords internal evidence of
the late production of this part of the book. It
comes in fact from a portion of the Mosaic legend,
which Avas not developed until about the time of
Ezekiel. In the final redaction of the series known as the
Pentateuch the Book of Numbers was made to
end with a statement that these were the com
mandments and judgments delivered by the hand
of Moses in the plains of Moab, thus furnishing a
connecting link Avith the introductory passages of

EPISODES AND FRAGMENTS. JOSHUA 255
Deuteronomy, Avhile a chapter Avas added to the
latter book winding up the career of Moses on
Mount Nebo. In all the long period and the
varied experience of Israel since those days of
dim antiquity there had not arisen a prophet
"like unto Moses, Avhom the Lord knew face to
face," for it had taken all that interval of tribal
and national life and growth to develop the system
which Avas attributed to the first great leader and
law-giver, but of Avhich he Avas really the product.
Although the Book of Joshua was not included
in the Torah, but was made the first in the col
lection of the Nebiim, it has a close historical
connection with the Book of Numbers, and is al
most as curiously composite as that production,
though less fragmentary and incoherent in con
struction. It is generally associated by recent
critics with the books that precede it in the present
arrangement, and the six have been designated
as the Hexateuch. Joshua contains parts of the
primitive record of the HebreAV people, made up
from the earhest documents in the time of Heze
kiah, and grounded upon the old legends of the
Wars of Jehovah ; but these were transmuted in
the several processes of adapting the record to
the development of the Jewish laAv. Out of these
ancient tales came such incidents as those con
nected Avith the crossing of the Jordan, the taking

256 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of Jericho, the destruction of " Ai," and the vic
tories at Gibeon. It is to be noted that the old
est of the material used by the compiler of the
book was later than the rebuilding of Jericho in
the time of Ahab. A curious instance of the use
made of the antique material is seen in the de
scription of the battle of Gibeon, Avhere a hyper
bolical apostrophe to the sun and moon from the
Book of Jasher is followed by a matter-of-fact
statement that those luminaries really stood still
at the command of Joshua.
This entire book is quite unhistorical in its
character. It crowds together the exploits of a
prolonged and irregular process of conquest and
subjugation, and ascribes them to a commander
Avho was altogether legendary, if not quite myth
ical. One instance may be cited to illustrate
this characteristic. Joshua is described as slay
ing Jabin, the King of Hazor, and burning his
capital, but the Book of Judges, a much earlier
production and ostensibly covering a wider range
of events, has a very different story of the struggle
of Israel Avith this King of Hazor, against Avhom
they prevailed more and more untU they had de
stroyed him. There Avas in fact no such system
atic and rapid conquest of the country, no such
extermination and slaughter, no such butcheries as
are here attributed to divine command. The nar-

EPISODES AND FRAGMENT*. JOSHUA 257
rative is artificial and mostly of a date long sub
sequent to the establishment of the kingdoms of
Israel and Judah.
The allotment of lands and the distribution of
tribes accord only vaguely Avith a situation at any
time actually existing, and seem to have been
made by the writer with reference to the ideal sys
tem contemplated for a possible future. Among
the latest and most studied interpolations are those
which support the Levitical scheme, and these
could not have been written prior to the captivity,
as this scheme did not then exist. Nothing was
known before that time of the " cities of refuge "
and the cities and towns assigned to the Levites,
some of which were not in the possession of the
Israelites until long after the supposed conquests
of Joshua. There are other evidences that por
tions of the book were modified to sustain the later
prescriptions of the law, some of Avhich, indeed, it
repeats, and Joshua is represented in his old age
as recalling to the people Avhat their God had done
for them and against their enemies, and as impress
ing upon them the duty of obeying his commands
and cleaving to his worship. The aged leader is
even said to have written his injunctions in the
" book of the law of God," and to have set up a
" great stone " at the sanctuary of Shechem as the
witness of a new covenant with the people.
17

258 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Surely the first six books of the Old Testament
are more intelligible and far more interesting and
instructive, considered as the product of the life
and experience during several centuries of the
most remarkable people of antiquity, the only
people of antiquity that still survives, though dis
persed among the nations of the earth. From the
beginning to the end of the process of producing
these books was a period of at least four cen
turies, and the beginning was not less than five
hundred years after the escape out of Egypt and
the wandering in search of the ancestral home of
the race.
As has been stated in the historic outline
which forms the first part of this volume, during
most of the long period from the deliverance to
the establishment of the two kingdoms the people
had no written records. Their only memorials
Avere the rude altar, the stone pillar set up in the
ground, and the heap of loose stones, or gUgal,
which helped to keep in the mind of one genera
tion after another some notable event or expe
rience. But a rich store of oral tradition had
grown up ; the popular memory was filled Avith
tales of past trials and triumphs, reaching back
to the fables of Babylon and Nineveh and the mi
grations of the fathers of the tribes from the
" great river " to the " river of Egypt," over the

EPISODES AND FRAGMENTS. JOSHUA 259
plains of Syria, the hills of Canaan, and the Aveird
valley of the Dead-Sea region, and passing through
the bondage in Egypt, the escape through the
deserts and the recovery of the land claimed
as their own by ancient inheritance and divine
promise. A long line of teachers had developed concep
tions of deity and of duty which grew with ad
vancing intelligence and rising moral sense. There
is nothing in human literature elsewhere analogous
to this imbedding in one conglomerate mass, as
by the fusing and blending of geologic processes, of
the results of the experience of a race for centu
ries of its early life. The bulk of the prescrip
tions and prohibitions of the ancient Jewish law
have no appUcation to modern life, and are only of
historic interest. So far as a moral standard can
be derived from the general mass, it is not a high
one. The idea of justice at its best did not attain
a broad or exalted level, and of the gentler vir
tues there was hardly a dim notion. The God of
the Torah was created in the image of man, not
kindly, benignant, or magnanimous, but harsh,
jealous, and vengeful — addicted to fierce out
breaks of wrath, but placated by shows of repent
ance and humility, and ready to reward submissive
service. Eegarded as an embodiment of the con
ception of divinity which prevailed among the

260 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Hebrews, the highest conception of that early time,
and one which furnished a powerful factor in the
conceptions of the purer religion which sprang
from their ancient faith, it is an impressive subject
of study.

V
JUDGES. EUTH
The Book of Judges contains a more continuous
mass of the original material of ancient Hebrew
literature than any other book in the entire collec
tion. There is little doubt that it Avas put in sub
stantially its present form in the time of Hez
ekiah, as a sequel to the early story of the life of
Israel formed by combining the two parallel ac
counts, as already described ; but, unlike that
story, it underwent comparatively little retouching
to make it conform to ideas wrought out in the
process of developing the Mosaic law. It is a
book of legends drawn mainly from the popular
treasury of the Wars of Jehovah, and the primi
tive formation, Avhich appears in broken and
mingled strata in Genesis and comes occasionally
to the surface in other parts of the Hexateuch, is
here almost free from the effects of fusion and the
overlaying of later material. There are breaks
and crevices, occasional signs of the blending of
contiguous veins of tradition and slight indications
of expansion, but on the Avhole we have a pristine

262 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
product of the first literary activity of the Semitic
genius. In the opening chapters there are evidences of
the efforts of the " harmonizers " to bring this
series of episodes of the days of the " judges " into
accord with the artificial account of the conquest
in the Book of Joshua, but they failed to obliterate
the glaring inconsistencies and direct contradic
tions, and fortunately the process of sophistication
was not carried far. It left unmarred a number of
vivid pictures of the rude life of the Hebrew clans,
striving to establish themselves and to maintain
possession of the land which they had invaded.
These show that the inhabitants had neither been
slaughtered nor driven out, and no such result
Avas ever attained by the petty and irregular con
flicts that were kept up until long after the estab
lishment of the kingdom.
These scenes present our earliest view of the
people of Israel in the light and atmosphere of
reality. As we contemplate them it is evident
that there we see the beginning of the life and
character that are to develop under kings and
prophets, laAv-givers and priests, through all the
vicissitudes of this peculiar people, for the produc
tion of Judaism — the common prologue to Chris
tianity and Mohammedanism ; and that those
lurid sketches of the infant world, those idyllic

JUDGES. RUTH 263
glimpses of patriarchal life, and the sombre rev
elations of Jehovah in the sohtudes of Sinai
have been projected across this open field of real
ity and portrayed upon the mist.
But there is the color and the throb of flesh and
blood, the crude vigor of primitive humanity in
Ehud, the left-handed Benjaminite, and the fat
King of Moab ; in Sisera and the daring wife of
Heber, the Kenite, Avith Deborah shouting her an
them of triumph, more ancient than the story Avith
which it is connected ; in the exploits of Gideon
in punishing the marauders of Midian and Amalek,
and in the overweening and bloody ambition of
his son, Abimelech ; in the deeds of the bold bri
gand of Gilead, summoned from his stronghold at
Tob to become the champion of the Lord at Miz
pah ; in the prowess of Samson, a very picture-
book giant in his light-hearted valor and his
dismal fate, as void of moral purpose as the hero
of a fairy tale, Nazarite though he Avas ; in the easy
virtue of the wandering Levite and the daring of
the Danites who stole the oracle of Jehovah in the
hill country of Ephraim and violently dispossessed
the quiet and secure people of Laish ; in the ex
periences of that other Levite whose concubine
played the harlot and met a horrible fate at
Gibeah, where the prevailing morals were not dis
tinguishable from those of Sodom in the time of

264 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Lot ; and in the fratricidal war that grew out of
this outrage, and the barbarous amends to Benja
min for the loss of his Avives and children.
Here is humanity as gross and genuine as in
the first rude annals of any race, and as devoid of
moral sense and religious spirit. Those people
knew nothing of even the germs of the law Avhich
centuries later Avas thrown back of their history ;
and all those forms, modes, and shoAvs of worship,
built up in after time, Avere unheard of by them.
Their notions of Jehovah differed Uttle from
Moab's notions of Chemosh, and Amnion's notions
of Baal, and they were apt to mix their gods. The
oracles set up by Gideon and by Micah illustrate
the conception of those days in matters of divinity ;
Jephthah's vow shows that human sacrifice lin
gered even in Israel, and no legend in history ex
hibits ranker barbarism than the account of the
war of the other tribes upon Benjamin.
These episodes are of supreme interest for the
light they cast upon the condition of the tribes
before they Avere consolidated into a kingdom,
when " every man did that Avhich Avas right in
his OAvn eyes," and irresponsible leaders arose in
time of trouble to rescue the people and to repel their
enemies. The record is mutilated and fragmenta
ry, but the picture is fairly complete. That the
original legends were of the Northern Kingdom is

JUDGES. RUTH 265
evident from the little attention given to Judah,
which virtually consituted the Southern realm.
The scenes are almost Avholly among the tribes of
the North and in that section of Manasseh east of
the Jordan.
In the Book of Judges are many indications
of late touches in the process of redaction, out of
harmony Avith the context, especially in the first
three and the last three chapters. The song put
in the mouth of Deborah and Barak is indepen
dent of the prose narrative of the defeat of Jabin,
and an older composition. It is doubtless one of
the oldest of the popular chants in Avhich events
were commemorated long before their Avords were
written down, and it formed part of the material
out of which the prose narrative was made ; but
there are signs of alteration in the text as finally
preserved. The miraculous appears in this as in most an
cient collections of historical tradition, and in the
same crude way ; and, as in all the Hebrew annals,
failures and calamities are attributed to the dis
pleasure of Jehovah at some wrong-doing of the
people, and successes are credited to his direction,
hoAvever questionable or barbarous the means by
which they are gained. It was out of this per
sistent recognition of the authority and poAver of
the national deity, especially by the Avriters of

266 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
these annals, that the theocratic system was finally
developed and the doctrine of an overruling prov
idence was bequeathed to later times.
The charming idyl of Euth used to be regarded
as a pendant to the Book of Judges, and there
is reason to believe that in the first collection
of the Hebrew scriptures it formed a part of
it; but it is entUely different in style and tone
and of much later composition than the original
material of that book. Its date cannot be deter
mined, as there is no sign of its existence before
its appearance in the scriptural collection, long
after the return from exile. It is believed by
some to have been Avritten after the captivity, but
of this there is no evidence, and whUe it is later
than the classical period of Hezekiah, it is supe
rior in literary quality to anything that has come
down from the post-exilic period.
But the time of its production is of little conse
quence. It seems to have no special moral or re
ligious purpose, but it presents a beautiful picture
of the softer and gentler side of life and manners
"in the days when the judges judged," as they
were imagined in later days. It affords a pleasing
contrast with the brutal and bloody scenes of the
Book of Judges, and breathes kindliness even for
Moab, the traditional enemy of Israel. Its pur
pose is generally assumed to be to account for the

JUDGES. RUTH 267
origin of the family of David, but that comes in
only casually at the very end, and in a Avay to sug
gest after - thought. The statement as to Obed,
that " he is the father of Jesse, the father of David,"
may be a later addition to the story, as the bit of
genealogy which follows surely was, being taken
from the Book of Chronicles. In the serious ac
count of David in the Book of Samuel, unques
tionably an earlier production, there is no attempt
to trace his pedigree, and it was probably unknown.
The Book of Euth is as far as possible from being
historical, and it needs no special purpose to com
mend it to our admiration. It is an antique gem
in a rude setting.

VI
THE BOOK OF SAMUEL
What have long been called the tAvo Books of
Samuel Avere originally one, and form a continuous,
though irregular, narrative. It is made up largely
of the same kind of material that appears in the
Book of Judges, but received much greater ad
ditions and interpolations at the hands of com
pilers and copyists. Like that and the Book of
Kings, now also divided into tAvo, it received sub
stantially its final form in the interval betAveen the
promulgation of the law in its Deuteronomic ver
sion and the establishment of the Levitical system,
probably in the early years of the Babylonian
exile. The patcliAvork in its composition is almost
as evident, though not so incongruous, as that of
the Book of Numbers, Avhich Avas compiled later
and of more varied material.
The original legend of the prophet Samuel was
pieced out Avith passages of later origin, so that he
is brought to the close of his career two or three
times, and appears in at least two quite different
aspects. The story of his life as a priest at Shiloh

THE BOOK OF SAMUEL 269
practically ends at the beginning of the eighth
chapter, and the passage that follows is of different
material. The poetical prayer of Hannah is a late
insertion, and in the prophet's reply to the de
mand for a king there is an evident and not very
friendly reference to the reign of Solomon. Two
different accounts of bringing Saul to the throne
are blended Avithout effacing their inconsistencies,
and this use of two traditions relating to the same
event without reconciling them with each other is
characteristic of the greater part of the book.
There are distinct indications of the hand of the
Deuteronomic compiler in chapter xii. The Avhole
narrative to chapter xv. is made up of anecdotes,
after the manner of Judges, but less homogene
ous in character. That chapter itself is an inter
polation from a different source, and what follows
to chapter ix. of the Second Book is devoted
mainly to developing the career of David.
In this there is the same mingling of discordant
material as in what relates to Samuel and Saul,
but Saul is soon given up as a failure by the Lord
and Samuel disappears from the scene, while
David makes his Avay to the throne in the most
picturesque fashion. His first introduction to
Saul is described in two Avidely different ways,
and in several places in the story of his advent
ures there are signs of mixing two or more tra-

270 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
ditions regarding the same event. This is quite
evident in the famous tale of the giant of Gath.
The couplet several times repeated, referring to
David's proAvess as a warrior, was doubtless from
poetical material relating to his exjiloits, the rest
of Avhich was transmuted into prose. The bar
barism of the time is hardly more veiled in this
part of Samuel than in Judges. The material
draAvn from the old Book of the Wars of Je
hovah continues to be visible doAvn to David's
establishment of his power over all Israel at Jeru
salem, and the lament over the death of Saul and
Jonathan is distinctly credited to the Book of
Jasher. The section of the Book of Samuel
relating to the rise of David and the planting of
his dynasty ends with chapter viii. of what is
called the Second Book.
Chapters ix. to xx. of Second Samuel form a
distinct work from that which precedes, and the
first two chapters of Kings, relating to the close of
David's career, seem to belong to it. It is a con
tinuous account of the doings of David and of the
intrigues of his court, and it is traced either by an
unfriendly hand or by that of a friend of peculiar
candor. The most scandalous episode, that of the
king and the Avife of Uriah the Hittite, is consid
ered by acute critics as an interpolation and as
intended to throw discredit upon the mother of

THE BOOK OF SAMUEL 271
Solomon. But for the most part the account
seems to have the color and flavor of the time, and
the original material must have taken form soon
after the events. It evidently underwent httle
modification at the hands of the compilers, and
Avas rather intractable to the process of priestly
revision. The author of the Chronicles found
himself constrained to cast it aside altogether as
inconsistent Avith his purpose.
The last four chapters of Samuel form a late
interpolation, made up of miscellaneous fragments
which some scribe was reluctant to throw away.
It includes the story of Eizpah and her sons,
another version of the Goliath legend, a variant of
the eighteenth psalm, Avhich has no relation to the
context, the alleged last words of David, a collec
tion of odds and ends of tradition relating to him
and his warriors, and an account of famine and
pestilence due to the heinous offence of taking a
census. Thus far we find little elevation of moral
or religious sentiment above the level of the days
when " every man did that which Avas right in his
OAvn eyes," and the King of Israel is far from the
saintly pedestal to which he was elevated by later
writers.

VII
THE BOOK OF KINGS
The Book of Kings, arbitrarily divided in the
modern Bible into tAvo books, is perhaps the best
example in the Old Testament of the ancient
Hebrew manner of dealing with literary material,
especially that of a legendary and historical char
acter. It was never digested and wrought into
a neAv and symmetrical Avork, but mechanically
pieced together, and successive revisers made ad
ditions, interpolations, and variations to suit the
purpose uppermost in the mind of each. The
final product was a patchwork with many incon
gruities which there is no means of fully explaining
or clearing up, because the material that was not
used in any of the processes Avas at last cast away
and lost beyond recovery. On the fall of Samaria
the writers of the Northern Kingdom took refuge
at Jerusalem with such of the store of legends and
records belonging to them as they were able to
save, and when the Judean capital Avas taken and
the priests and scribes of the temple Avere carried
away to Babylon, they gathered up the accu-

THE BOOK OF KINGS 273
mulated treasures as best they could, and it was
in the early years of the exile that the annals of
the two kingdoms were put in something like the
shape in Avhich they have been preserved.
The first two chapters of the Book of Kings
form an integral part of the story of David and
connect with the twentieth chapter of Second Sam
uel, and the work of the chief compiler of this book
itself begins with the reign of Solomon. How com
plete a compilation may have existed before the
captivity, and Iioav far it may have been the work of
the same hand that finished the record, it is hard to
say, but everything points to the supposition that
someone belonging to the company of Jeremiah
became the custodian of the disordered material
and completed the work. It is almost certain that
this writer also arranged, Ave might almost say
disarranged, the declamations of the prophet and
wrote the connecting narrative, which may account
for the otherwise remarkable fact that Jeremiah is
not mentioned in Kings in connection with the
events of the reign of Josiah and his successors,
in which he played such a prominent part.
It is certain that the dominant idea of the
principal compiler of the Book of Kings, as we have
it, was to give a color to the history of the two king
doms in keeping Avith the Deuteronomic version
of the law, and that most of his interpolations and
18

274 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
changes were made with that view. It is equally
certain that Avhere the distinction between priests
and Levites is made and the separate functions of
the latter are emphasized, it is due to modifica
tions made in later revisions, for this distinction
Avas not established until after the exile, while
the Deuteronomic code Avas equaUy unknoAAm to
the authors of the older parts of this book. In the
last form into which the variegated material was
wrought there are cases of repetition, of the use
of tAvo different traditions of the same event Avith-
out effacing inconsistencies, of breaks and trans
positions, and even of the introduction into the
text of what were originally marginal notes and
glosses. There Avere evidently many variations
produced in copying, and the Greek version of the
Septuagint differed in many details from the
Hebrew text which became the basis of modern
translations. As to what may be called the original material,
there was evidently much from the same mass of
legends and traditions that formed the bulk of the
Book of Judges and furnished the groundwork of
the Book of Samuel, mostly from the Northern
Kingdom ; there were dry records kept by official
scribes at Jerusalem, and there Avere apparently
separate collections of the " acts " or doings of
certain kings and prophets. The point of view of

THE BOOK OF KINGS 275
the compiler was that of Judah, and he could
never forgive the revolt of Jeroboam, or look upon
anything but the unfaArorable side of the conduct
of his successors, save in the rare instances in
Avhich they were in sympathy with the King of
Judah. The tendency to idolatry and alien wor
ship in the Northern realm is exaggerated, and the
conduct of its rulers is painted in dark colors.
The predilection of the compiler for the policy of
centralizing worship at the temple in Jerusalem
and discountenancing the rural sanctuaries, which
wag a late development, distorted his estimate even
of the earlier kings of Judah, to whom that policy
was quite unknown.
The record, considered as historical, was further
vitiated by the adoption of an artificial system of
chronology, assuming twelve periods of forty years
from the exodus to the building of the temple, and
a like interval from that time to the return from
captivity, and by an attempt to force events into
compliance with the system. This chronology is
erroneous in its general outline and full of inaccu
racies of detail.
The story of Solomon's reign is almost apart in
style and material from the rest of the book, but it
gives evidence of more than one source. The ac
count of the dedication of the temple is almost
Avholly a late composition, and is saturated with

276 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the Deuteronomic spirit, which is especially evi
dent in the prayer put in the mouth of the king.
In style and ideas it is centuries later than the
building of the temple and wholly out of keeping
Avith the character of Solomon, as presented in the
older material. The stories of the king's wonder
ful Avisdom belong to the Solomon legend, which
developed long after the events of his reign, but it
is older than the representations of his character
which would make him the founder of the exclusive
national worship at Jerusalem. The oldest mate
rial relating to him produces the most vivid impres
sion, as in his dealings with Hiram, his alliance
Avith Egypt, his oriental luxury and easy tolerance
of foreign worship.
It is not necessary, and it Avould be tiresome, to
point out in detail the peculiarities of the series
of narratives of the kings of Judah and Israel,
which incUcate variety of source and inartistic use
of material. The most striking and significant
parts of the whole book are those in Avhich Elijah
and Elisha figure, and in none are its chief charac
teristics more conspicuous. These descriptions
were undoubtedly of Northern origin, and they
relate almost wholly to events in the Samaritan
kingdom, but they were expanded by at least one
of the compilers or revisers with material drawn
from the later legends of the prophets. The ex-

THE BOOK OF KINGS 277
istence of more than one source is evident upon
the face of the broken narratives, which are pieced
irregularly into the fabric. The similarity of the
names and the parallelism of incidents suggest
the probabUity that there Avas but one actual per
sonage behind the two imposing figures of Elijah
and Elisha. The account nearest to the events
and having the greatest appearance of actuality is
that which connected Elisha with incidents of the
reign of Ahab and the accession of Jehu, and it
looks as though the more weird and imposing
personality of his forerunner was evolved from
two separate lines of traditions blended together,
and from the strong impression produced by the
startling interventions of a prophet of Jehovah
against the influence of Baal.
The parallelisms are noticeable in the stories of
the widow's unfailing cruise of oil, and the bring
ing of her dead son back to life at Zarephath, and
the pot of oil from which many vessels were filled,
and the resuscitation of the child of the Shuna-
mite, and in the references to the anointing of
Jehu and Hazael, Avhich in the story is assigned
to Elijah to be done, and is actually done by
Elisha, after an interval occupied with various
events covering a long period. The account of
Ahab's acquisition of Naboth's field or vineyard
is also associated with both prophets in a mannei'

278 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
indicating two different sources, and raising the
surmise that there was really but one prophet.
As the form in Avhich we have these episodes was
produced two or three centuries after the time to
which they relate, out of materials of different
origin and different ages, and as the miraculous
incidents mingled with historical fact necessarily
stamp them as legendary, it is a reasonable sur
mise that the mysterious prophet of Horeb and
Carmel, whose appearances produced such a start
ling effect and left such a lasting impression, was
elevated into an ideal personality, and Avas por
trayed by the prosaic writers who made up the
record under two different aspects, the one in
dividuality disappearing in a whirlwind and leav
ing his mantle to the other, who was to emerge
into the light of history and take part in the
notable change of dynasty at Samaria. Among
the minor indications that may be noted is the
fact that while Elijah was called the Tishbite,
there was no place from Avhich that designation
could be derived, and that the exclamation, " the
chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof," put
in the mouth of Elisha when Elijah disappeared,
is also put in the mouth of King Joash when
Elisha was about to die.
The fragmentary character of the material of
the Book of Kings, the unskilful Avay in which it

THE BOOK OF KINGS 279
was used by a succession of compilers and re
visers, and the disappearance of the rest of the
mass from which it Avas draAvn, leave a Avide field
for conjecture and erudition, but the present pur
pose is only to state what is known and to point
out such internal indications as are interesting
and significant of the general character of the
book. It is, of course, not historical in the strict
sense, but it presents pictures of the two king
doms, with strong lights and shades, and with
distorted reflections thrown back from a time
when both had passed away, and it affords the
means of studying the life and character of the
Hebrew people when Judaism was going through
an important stage of its development.

VIII
THE BOOK OF CHEONICLES
A century and a half or more after the restora
tion of Jerusalem and the temple, and the estab
lishment of the Levitical system of laAv and of
worship, toward the end of the peaceful domina
tion of the Persian power in the fourth century
B.C., a scribe attached to the temple service under
took to rewrite the history of Israel and present
it from the point of view of his class, " the priests
and the Levites." He had under his hand the
Book of Kings, from which he made liberal ex
tracts Avhen it suited his purpose, and he seems
also to have had a variety of other material, more
or less historical, including a confused mass of
tribal genealogies. He practically ignored the
Northern Kingdom, and confined himself to the
Une of David, and he gave very little attention to
the part played by the prophets in the experience
of the nation.
There is only a passing reference to Elijah, in
which he is said to have sent a warning to King
Jehoram of Judah, in Avriting, at a time Avhen, ac-

THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES 281
cording to the account in Kings, the prophet must
already have disappeared from the face of the
earth. There is a scant aUusion to Isaiah in
the reign of Hezekiah, and a mere reference to
Jeremiah, as lamenting the death of Josiah, and
as speaking " from the mouth of the Lord "
words that Avere fulfilled by the desolation of the
land after the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar. The
priests and Levites, on the other hand, are made
to figure prominently, and the chief purpose of
the Avriter was to attribute the establishment of the
whole Levitical system of worship to David and
Solomon, although it had no existence before the
captivity. He carries back to the first temple at
every opportunity the liturgical and musical ser
vice of the second, and represents the priests and
Levites as having the functions then Avhich they
exercised in the Avriter's own time.
Chronicles, like the books of Samuel and Kings,
is properly only one book, the division hav
ing been arbitrarily made long after it Avas first
included in the scriptures of the HebreAvs. The
first chapters are taken up with disconnected
genealogies, starting Avith Adam, interspersed with
scraps of historical tradition. The names are
largely those of places, and of tribes, clans, and
families, rather than of persons, and where numbers
are given they are generally manifestly exaggerated.

2S2 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Statistics were in fact unknown in ancient oriental
history. Beckoning in numbers was not carried
far, and anything beyond a very moderate com
putation was boldly stated in large round numbers,
having really no more definite meaning than the
phrase " like the sand which is upon the seashore."
Even in the genealogical portion of the book the
purpose is not OATerlooked of giving an ancient
origin to the Levites and to their peculiar place
and function in the post-exilic time.
The chief exploit of the author of the Chron
icles is taking the life and color out of the his
tory of David and Solomon, and completely trans
forming the character of those tAvo interesting
potentates. As he Avas only concerned with the
Judean dynasty he makes but slight reference to
Saul ; and instead of the outlaAv of Adullam and
the robust brigand of Ziklag, with his picturesque
adventures, we have a chosen and obedient servant
of Jehovah to whom victories came as a matter of
course, and to whose support the people flock at
every opportunity. We are permitted to knoAV
nothing of the crafty and bloody deeds of Joab,
Avho is merely an exemplary officer of the military.
When David becomes king we lose sight of the
heroic warrior of the old accounts, and are edified
with a monarch devoting his time to organizing
the service of the sanctuary, in the form in which

THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES 283
it was described in the Levitical narrative, and
preparing for a permanent temple, to be built by
his successor. There is nothing of those sinful
doings that gave David and his family a human in
terest ; no falling a victim to the charms of Bath
sheba, no scandals among the royal princes, no
revolt of Absalom, no picture of the poor old king
hounded by the handsome reprobate, or of the in
trigues of court and harem over the succession.
David finally dies in the most peaceful manner,
full of days and honors, and passes his authority
quietly over to Solomon with pious injunctions.
There is nothing of the beautiful Abishag or the
plotting Adonijah. The only iniquity of the king
appears to have been that terrible offence of cen
sus-taking, which must needs account for a period
of famine and pestilence. But in the meantime he
has busied himseU' with priests and Levites, and
with choirs and instruments of music, and he is
described as consecrating the ark Avith psalmody
that originated after the exile, as the psalms of
praise from which that in 1 Chronicles xvii. is
made up unquestionably did. A few of the old
incidents, especially of wars, are repeated in a cold
and colorless way, except where they are copied
from Samuel, while much space is given to an ac
count of estabUshing the service of the priests and
Levites, which is anachronistic as well as fictitious,

284 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
and to descriptions of propositions for building the
temple, which clearly contradict those in the Book
of Kings.
The Solomon of this author is as exemplary and
edifying as his revered father, and as strikingly in
contrast with himself as he was depicted a few
centuries nearer to his own day. He receives the
throne as of divine and paternal right, without
question from any side, and with it plans and
materials for the house of God, Avhich he proceeds
to construct, Avith the kindly aid of "Huram"
of Tyre, who, for a Phcenician, Avas strangely pos
sessed Avith a devout regard for the God of Israel.
The account of the dedication is largely copied
from the Book of Kings, but there is some Levit
ical expansion of the ceremonies. We have the
stories of the Avisdom and power and riches of Sol
omon, but nothing of the luxurious and seductive
harem, or of the falling away to false gods. The
David and Solomon of the Chronicles are beings
of quite a different mould from the David and
Solomon of the old legends embodied in Samuel
and Kings, though the latter book underwent much
pious editing. They are the idealized founders,
not of the kingdom, which in the days of the Levite
scribe had passed aAvay beyond hope, but of the
temple and its worship. To make them the
founders of Judaism as it then existed seems to

THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES 285
haA'e been the chief object of this literary product
of a decadent age.
After the division into two kingdoms the writer
makes merely incidental references to that of the
North, and only when the rulers of the two come
in contact, either as allies or enemies, and these
references are not only slight in extent but slight
ing in tone. He sometimes appropriates passages
from the Book of Kings, and at other times varies
materially from its narratives and makes additions
to them. The latter consist largely of interjec
tions of the Levitical system into a record of events
that preceded its existence, as in Abijah's defiance
of Jeroboam, the restoration of the line of David
in the person of the boy Joash by the action of
the priests and Levites, and the renovations of the
temple under Jehoshaphat, Joash, and Hezekiah.
There is an inconsistency Avith the earlier record
in representing Asa as having suppressed the
" high places " and centralized Avorship in the
temple, a reform which Avas not seriously at
tempted before the time of Josiah. But the most
glaring inconsistency is to be found in the state
ments as to the defeat and captivity of the sinful
Manasseh, and his repentance and amendment.
This is in effect a contradiction of the previous
account and has no support in historical evidence.
The freest developments of the narrative, from

286 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the Levitical point of view of the second temple,
are to be found in the treatment of the reigns of
Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Hezekiah, and Josiah, the
kings Avhose conduct Avas most in accord with the
religious tendency directed by the prophets, and
the evident purpose Avas to claim a liberal share of
the credit for the priests, Avhose influence was
actually rather feeble in those earlier times, and
for the Levites, Avho had no influence at all and
did not exist as an organized body. The important
occurrences which followed the death of Josiah
and ended in Babylonian exile are scantily referred
to as of no consequence for the main purpose of
the writer. The Book of Chronicles has little
historical value, so far as the details of events are
concerned, and is chiefly of interest as illustrating
the view of the past which was held in the purlieus
of the temple in the fourth century B.C.

IX
EZEA, NEHEMIAH
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah form a se
quel to that of Chronicles, covering the events
of the return from captivity, the restoration of the
temple and its worship, and the rebuilding of the
waUs of Jerusalem. They were first knoAvn as the
first and second books of Esdras, or Ezra, and
were compiled from several documents by the
author of the Chronicles, Avith connecting interpo
lations of his own. Nehemiah left a personal
memoir of his administration as the representative
of Persian authority, and his historical character
is clear and distinct. Ezra's activity was earlier
in its connection Avith events, and later in being
recorded, and as a historical figure he is vague and
uncertain. The probability seems to be that he
cUed prior to Nehemiah's mission to Jerusalem,
and that in the final account the dates Avere forced
to bring them together.
The memoir left by Nehemiah, which is un
doubtedly authentic and underwent Uttle change
except from the errors of copyists, comprises the

288 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
first seven chapters of the book which now bears
his name, chapter xi., which connects directly with
chapter vii., verses 27 to 45 of chapter xii., and
chapter xiii, beginning with verse 4. While Nehe
miah was only a representative of secular author
ity, he had been zealous in establishing observ
ance of the law and maintaining the religious
separatism of the Jews. With this vieAV he was
especially strenuous for a strict regard for the
Sabbath and for enforcing the Deuteronomic pro
hibition of mixed marriages. His prominence in
matters of Avorship and religious observance ap
pears to have excited the emulation, not to say
the jealousy, of the priests and Levites of the
temple, and sometime after his death and the ap
pearance of his memoir a simUar production was
brought to light relating to Ezra, magnifying his
share in the restoration, and purporting to be a
personal memoir.
This supposititious memoir constitutes the last
four chapters of the Book of Ezra, beginning with
the seventh, and chapters viii. to x., inclusive, of
the Book of Nehemiah. At the time the com
pilation of the tAvo books was made there were two
other documents relating to the period of the resto
ration which were turned to account. The more
authentic of these appears in the passage of the
Book of Ezra beginning with chapter ii. and extend-

EZRA, NEHEMIAH 289
ing to chapter iv., verse 5, and includes also the
latter part of chapter vi. from verse 13. The list of
returning exiles in chapter ii. is repeated in chapter
vii. of Nehemiah, the author of the latter saying
that he found it in the book of the genealogy of
them that came up at the first. The other docu
ment, including chapter i. of Ezra and the passage
from iv. 6 to vi. 12, and purporting to contain de
crees of Cyrus, Artaxerxes, and Darius, and corre
spondence Avith malcontents in Judea, has no his
torical basis.
The compiler of what now constitutes the tAvo
books made up the first six chapters from the
documents last named, and then introduced the
portion of the memoir attributed to Ezra the
scribe, which related to his bringing up a con
tingent of the exiles from Babylon, and his aston
ishment and horror at the state of things which he
found at Jerusalem, especially the intermarriages
Avith "the peoples of the land." Then folloAvs
Nehemiah's account of his commission from Ar
taxerxes, to rebuild the city of his father's sepul
chres and the tribulations which attended its ac
complishment, ending with the repetition of the
list of those "which came up at the first." Then
the compiler reverts to the Esdras memoir and
brings in the account of the promulgation of the
law and the reneAving of the ancient covenant.
19

290 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Special stress was laid in this upon the prohibi
tion of mixed marriages, the observance of the
Sabbath, and the contributions for the temple ser
vice. Chapter xi. of Nehemiah, which was drawn
from the memoir of the Tirshatha, relates to the
distribution of the people, and especially of the
Levites, but the compiler followed it Avith a pas
sage of his OAvn relating to the Levites Avith a rep
etition of names from the previous lists, interrupted
Avith Nehemiah's account of the dedication of the
waU. The book ends with his description of what
he found on returning from an official visit to the
" King of Babylon," meaning the King of Persia, to
Avhom Babylon Avas then subject, and his stern deal
ing with those Avho desecrated the sanctuary, vio
lated the Sabbath, and married "strange Avoman."
One noticeable thing in the Avriting of Nehemiah
is, that he did not use the name of Jahwe or Jeho
vah at all, and instead of the familiar formula of
divine commands, we find the phrase " My God put
it into my heart." The figure of Nehemiah ap
pears with a vivid reality, while that of Ezra is
somewhat indistinct, and this is doubtless due to
the manner in Avhich the record was made, and to
the character of the sources from Avhich it was
drawn, a century or so after the events. A curi
ous evidence of the close connection of these

EZRA, NEHEMIAH 291
tAvo books Avith that of Chronicles is seen in
the breaking off of the closing statement of the
latter in the middle of a sentence, and the re
sumption and completion of the statement at the
beginning of Ezra.

THE EAELIEE PEOPHETS
The writings of the prophets, or their utter
ances as they were preserved, whether put in
Avriting by themselves or by others, will be read
with better understanding, if taken up in their
chronological order and with reference to the
events with which they Avere associated. It should
be constantly borne in mind that the collection
was made some time after the return from exile,
and was not at first held sacred from the process
of editing. There were selections and extracts
rather than a systematic compilation, and there
are many indications of suppression and even of
interpolation. The various productions became
greatly disordered in the vicissitudes of the na
tional life, from the time when there Avere two
kingdoms until the time when there remained only
the vague hope of one ; and, finally, Avhen the col
lection was closed to revision, the utterances of the
same prophet remained in disorder, while those of
unknown authors were occasionally mixed with
those of the most famous.

THE EARLIER PROPHETS 293
The earliest fragment of the writings of the
prophets which has come doAvn to us is the pas
sage contained in chapters xv. and XATi. of the
Book of Isaiah, designated as the Burden of
Moab and as the word of God spoken " in time
past." It is simply an exultation over the disasters
of Moab in one of the conflicts Avith Israel. Some
have assigned it to the time of the defeat of Mesha
by the allied kings of Israel and Judah (Joram
and Jehoshaphat), but the better opinion is that
it came out when Jeroboam II. brought Moab
into subjection anewr, and that its author Avas that
Jonah Avho, unfortunately for the dignhVy of his
name, became the hero of a grotesque tale illus
trating the discomfiture of the prophet Avho set his
own judgment against the Avill of Jehovah.
But the earliest of the prophets about Avhose
identity there is no doubt and Avhose Avords have
come down to us substantially as they were uttered,
is Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, who felt himself
called upon to give voice to the terrible warnings
of Jehovah. He was of the very southern part of
Judah, but it was in the Northern Kingdom that
these warnings were then chiefly needed. His
first utterances were said to have been made tAvo
years before the earthquake, but the later ones
came after that appalling event and contain allu
sions to it.

294 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
It was about the beginning of the eighth cen
tury B.C. Jeroboam II. had conquered his most
troublesome enemies, and his kingdom had grown
rich and his court luxurious in a period of pros
perity. There was the usual result of a marked
difference in the conditions of the people, the
hardship and oppression of the poor, the arro
gance and corruption of the favored class. There
was a careless lapsing into the sensuous Avorship
of the alien deities and a neglect of the national
God, or a mere formal regard for his altars. Among
the evils of the time was an extensive slave trade,
from Avhich the hapless in Israel suffered. The
rich were groAving richer, and the poor poorer, and
the spirit of discontent was abroad. Still a gen
eral gayety and confidence prevailed at Samaria,
though, after the lull of a long peace, there were
rumbling portents of future trouble, as the vast
shadow of the Assyrian poAver loomed over the
eastern horizon. The prophet felt premonitions
of the gathering wrath of Jehovah, and from the
pasture lands of Beersheba he ventured boldly to
the sanctuary at Bethel, and even to the palace
gate at Samaria, to fulminate his direful fore
bodings. He begins by distributing his denunciations to
the surrounding lands, and then devotes himself
especially to the iniquities of Israel, sometimes

THE EARLIER PROPHETS 295
in a tone of plaintive lamentation, but more often in
one of stern reproach. There is sharp sarcasm in
his references to the fair women of Samaria as
" kine of Bashan," and to the sacrificing at Bethel
and Gilgal, while those Avho make offerings con
tinue to transgress. There are stern threats of
Jehovah's punishment and the desolation of the
kingdom which the complaint of the priest of
Bethel to the king at Samaria does not suffice to
silence. There are to be earthquake and famine
and war and a sifting of the people among the
nations of the earth.
The idea of the salvation of a remnant and the
building up of a new nation was not clearly devel
oped so early, though the germ may have been
in the mind of this forerunner of the great proph
ets. The tone and style of the close of the Book
of Amos is so different from the rest, that it is be
lieved to be a later addition. But the significance
of the whole book is unmistakable, and in it the
voice of prophecy took a note Avhich was never
lost. There is an exalted conception of the DeitjT,
and the demand is for justice and for right, and
not for sacrifice and burnt offerings. The ethical
quality of the book is lofty and in marked contrast
with that of the legendary and historical writings,
and even with most of the writings embodying the
Jewish law. Its theology, and in some measure

296 THE JE WISH SCRIPTURES
its style, reminds one of the Book of Job, which
was a much later production.
The writer shows knowledge of the tradi
tions of the race, as already reduced to writing,
in his references to the escape from Egypt and
the wandering in the wilderness, but of the stat
utes and commands of which so much is made by
later writers he had never heard, for the reason
that they did not yet exist, save in the scanty
form of the old " covenants." But the doctrine
was fully launched that the fate of the nation
depended upon obedience to Jehovah's wiU, to
be shown in deeds of righteousness, and that per
sistence in idolatry and wickedness would bring
Avrath and destruction, from which the faithful
Avould be saA'ed to create a new nation that would
be blessed with Jehovah's favor. This may be
regarded as the doctrine of aU the prophets, on
which their Avarnings, their threats, their promises,
and their predictions were based.
The style of this book is distinctly rhythmical,
though it lacks the regular parallelism of HebreAv
verse, and it was no doubt carefully wrought. The
historical allusions are not clear enough to indi
cate the period over which the Avarnings extended,
but it was probably several years, and before they
ended the menace of the Assyrian power Avas clear
to the prophet's eye.

THE EARLIER PROPHETS 297
The little book which bears the name of Joel
seems to be a sequel to that of Amos, and is at all
events nearly contemporaneous with the later pas
sages of that production. As nothing is known
of its date or its authorship, except Avhat appears
upon its face, there is a suspicion that the names
Joel and Pethuel are symbolical ; but as most
names of the time were compounded with some
designation of Deity, it cannot be regarded as
certain. The book is made up chiefly of a graph
ic representation of drought and a plague of
grasshoppers, vividly compared to a devastating
army, in which some critics find an allegorical
reference to an apprehended horde of Assyrian
invaders, which is to be Jehovah's scourge of the
people for their sins. This is followed by an im
pressive summons of the people to penitence and
amendment, and a promise of reward in a plente
ous prosperity. There is a vision of the gathering
of the nations to the vallejr of Jehovah's judgment,
and their discomfiture for the wrongs done to the
children of Judah and Jerusalem. In this is pre
figured that great day of the triumph of Sion
Avhich became the dream of Israel's prophets for
generations. Another fragment generally assigned to this
period is the single chapter bearing the name of
Obadiah (" servant of Jehovah "), though some

298 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
find, in the reference to the desecration of Jeru
salem and in the use of the vague term translated
"captivity," an indication of later origin. The
reference is more probably to one of the incidents
of early warfare, as this leaflet is chiefly a tirade
against Edom for the violence done to his brother
Jacob. It was evidently written Avhile the North
ern Kingdom still existed, and the promise of the
unification of the people in one common triumph
over their enemies is in harmony with the spirit of
the prophets of the time of Jeroboam II.
In the same spirit and of the same time is the
fragment included by the collector of the proph
ecies in the Book of Zechariah, as chapter ix.,
which has no relation to what precedes and folloAvs
it. This is directed against the hostUe neighbors
of Israel and Judah in Syria, Phoenicia, and Phi
listia, and repeats the promise of Sion's future
triumph under a just king, Avhose dominion shall
extend from sea to sea and from the river to the
ends of the earth, that is, from the Eed Sea to the
Mediterranean, and from the Euphrates to the in
definite boundaries of the north and east.
Chapters x. and xi. of Zechariah constitute an
other independent fragment, full of vailed refer
ences to the disturbed condition that folloAved the
death of Jeroboam, Avhose son Avas assassinated
by Shallum, Avhile the latter speedily fell a victim

THE EARLIER PROPHETS 299
to Menahem, " three shepherds in one month."
Ephraim was overrun by Assyria, and Menahem was
forced to pay tribute, which he exacted from the
people. There had also been troublous times at
Jerusalem. Joash Avas driven from the throne by
conspiracy, and his son Amaziah had been slain by
his OAvn army. There was ill feeling between the
two kingdoms, and a general menace to both in the
overshadowing poAver of the East. The unknoAvn
author of these tAvo chapters, if they are from a
single source, seems at first to promise rescue for
Ephraim and defence for Judah against Egypt
and Assyria, which were contending over their
heads, and finally to express disgust with their
kings, or " Shepherds," and to break their broth
erhood asunder. In the tumult of the time he
seemed to see nothing but disaster. The allusions
are obscure and not very significant, and all that
is certain is the period to which this fragment be
longs. But the great prophet of that special period was
Hosea, about Avhose productions there is no doubt.
The introductory words, ascribing his utterances
to the time of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah
of Judah, and Jeroboam of Israel, must have been
prefixed by the collector, to indicate a general his
torical period, for nearly the same words are used
in introducing the Avritings of Isaiah, and there is

300 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
no exact correspondence betAveen the reign of Jero
boam and that of the four Judean kings named.
Amos was a Judean, and habitually speaks of the
Northern Kingdom as Joseph, or more broadly,
Jacob ; Avhile Hosea, a native, or at least a resident,
of the land, ahvays calls it Ephraim or Israel, and
refers to the Southern Kingdom as Judah or Jacob.
The latter, like his forerunner, shows familiarity
Avith the traditions of the race, and seems to have
been acquainted Avith the Avritten record now
nearly a century old. He does not refer to Moses
by name, but says that by a prophet the Lord
brought Israel up out of Egypt. There is no
reference to Abraham or Isaac, and the use of
Adam for " man " in the authorized version is an
error, though some regard the original as signify
ing the place Avhere Israel first entered Canaan,
and where the sin of Achan Avas committed.
The prophecies of Amos appear like oral improv
isations afterward carefully Avritten out. Those
of Hosea Avere evidently never spoken, but after
the opening chapters consist of a series of sad re
flections, reproaches, and appeals, regarding the
sins of the time, put in the mouth of Jehovah.
In the first three chapters, doubtless early produc
tions of the writer in the time of luxury and de
caying morals toward the end of Jeroboam's reign,
the prophet's personality appears, partly in the

THE EARLIER PROPHETS 301
third and partly in the first person, in a somewhat
gross symbolical representation of the fatal lust of
the people for the sensuous Avorship of the false
gods of the land. The figure of a faithless sexual
relation is kept up in later references to the same
form of iniquity, and was justified by the gross
practices attending the worship of Baal-Phegor
(Peor) and Astarte (Ashteroth). There is a rather
touching plea to the wayward nation as a faithless
wife and mother, Avho shall yet be reclaimed, and
an aspiration, never to be realized, for the final
union of Ephraim and Judah under one king.
But from the fourth chapter on it is the voice of
Jehovah upbraiding the Avickedness and perversity
of a people for which he has done so much,
which he loves so tenderly, and which he is so
anxious to reclaim to himself. There are bitter
reproaches, severe condemnation, and warnings
of terrible retribution, but ever returns the note
of pity and soitoav, and the eager promise of
blessing if evil ways are abandoned. These utter
ances no doubt extended over a series of years,
when Samaria was tending, through the tumult
and disaster of changing dynasties and Assyrian
oppression, to her inevitable doom.
There are many obscure references to passing
events, but the record we haA'e is so imperfect that
the effort to make them clear is hopeless. There

302 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
are hints of the vacillating policy of alliance Avith
Egypt or submission to Assyria, which is con
demned as the sinful alternative for a submissive
allegiance to Israel's great ruler and a sole re
liance upon His poAver. There are predictions of
carrying away to Egypt and to Assyria. The
former was never fulfilled, and the fulfilment of the
latter was deferred ; but one or both of them
seemed sure. Among the chief sinners of the time
were the priests of Bethel, A\'hich the prophet for
its degradation calls Beth AAven (House of Iniquity,
instead of House of God), Gilgal, and Shechem, and
in the allusions to their deeds there is a reminis
cence of the sons of Eli at Shiloh. They were
priests of Jehovah, but had degraded the sanctu
aries, at Avhich he Avas symbolized in the golden
calf of Egypt.
The pleadings and reproaches, and the menace
of desolation for the helpless and distracted king
dom, upon which an irresistible enemy is closing,
Avhile it is torn with internal dissension and is
heedless of the only -power that can save it, are
followed by the cheerful hope that Israel will yet
return unto the Lord and "blossom as the Uly and
cast forth his roots as Lebanon." It was not a
prediction, hardly a promise, and the hope Avas
not destined to fruition. The prophet Avas silent
before the fate of his beloved Ephraim Avas sealed

THE EARLIER PROPHETS 303
or perhaps made certain. It may be that the
hopelessness of the situation finally disheartened
him, and he could no longer endure to dwell upon
the vision of Samaria bearing her guilt. The
commonplace epilogue that closes the book was
doubtless added by the collector of the proph
ecies.

XI
THE BOOK OF THE PEOPHET ISAIAH
While Samaria was trembUng on the verge of
destruction, the voice of prophecy was hushed in
the Northern Kingdom, never to be heard again.
But it soon arose at Jerusalem in still clearer and
stronger accents. In fact, it reached its highest
pitch in the tones of Isaiah, loftiest of the prophets.
Of the part he played in the affairs of his time
and of the general character of his writings we
have already spoken in the former part of this vol
ume. It only remains to place, so far as we may,
the different utterances in their proper order and
in their proper relation to events, that they may
be the better understood.
The book bearing the name of Isaiah is a com
pilation of post-exilic time. The material had
fallen into disorder, the utterances of the great
prophet Avere disarranged, and not only Avere inter
polations and additions freely made, but no pas
sage was regarded as sacred from such editing as
the turn of events might seem to require. The
note prefixed to the collection indicates too extended

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH 305
a period of time. None of the writings pertain to
the time of Uzziah, and it is doubtful if any relate
to the reign of Jotham. The vision in chapter vi.
appears to have been preliminary to the collection
in one of its intermediate stages, and was probably
introduced by the editor. It is not in the manner
of Isaiah, but reminds one of Ezekiel. The first
five chapters are doubtless the prophet's earliest
productions, and refer to the evil days of Ahaz in
much the same tone as that of Amos and Hosea.
The first four verses of chapter ii. seem to be in
terpolated and are substantially the same as the
first four of chapter iv. of Micah, and both are an
echo of Joel's " day of the Lord." The burden of
these chapters is an upbraiding of the nation for
its sins and a promise of future glory when it shall
have been purged of its iniquities. The song of
the vineyard in chapter v. is a fine example of the
prophet's early manner.
In considering the writings or spoken utterances
of the historical Isaiah, who figured so prominently
in the reign of Hezekiah, we must omit, as of dif
ferent authorship and a different time, chapters
xiii. to xvi., inclusive, xxi., xxiv. to xxvii., xxxiv.,
xxxv., and all that follows chapter xxxix. The re
maining chapters, beginning with the seventh, are
badly disarranged. Chapter vii. to chapter x.,
verse 4, relates to the period before the death of
20

306 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Ahaz (about 730 B.C.),Avhen the kings of Syria and
Israel were confederated to resist Assyria and were
making hostile demonstrations against Judah.
While this passage contains menaces of destruc
tion to the enemies of Judah by invasion from
both Assyria and Egypt, it also threatens chastise
ment to the Southern Kingdom for its evil-doing,
and promises a final reunion under an ideal sov
ereign on the throne of David. There is a break
in this passage at ix. 8, and it ends abruptly with
x. 4, as if incomplete. The first eleven verses of
chapter xvii. belong Avith this passage, seeming to
fall in best at the end of chapter vii.
At this time Syria and Israel were threatened
Avith the invasion of their territory by Shalmaneser
of Assyria, and there are allusions to this danger
in these chapters. Chapter xxviii. is of the same
time, and the " overflowing scourge " is the com
ing Assyrian army. Phoenicia Avas included in
the menace of destruction, and to this " the bur
den of Tyre," chapter xxiii., may be referred. It
was in the midst of these exciting events that Sar
gon succeeded Shalmaneser, and it was while
Hoshea of Israel was casting about for help from
Egypt that the prophet fulminated the bitter tirade
in chapter xix., so far as verse 17. The rest of the
chapter is an incongruous interpolation of a later
time, an unrealized vision of Judah's future great-

THE BOOK OE THE PROPHET ISAIAH 307
ness. The crushing defeat of the Northern King
dom by Sargon gave rise to the passage beginning
with chapter x., verse 5, and ending with chap
ter xii. While it seems to exult in the disaster of
Ephraim, and to include Judah in the same chas
tisement, it threatens Assyria Avith retribution and
promises a glorious restoration in the time to come.
Chapters xxix. to xxxii. 8 appear to belong to
the same period, when there was dread at Jerusa
lem of the fate that had overtaken Samaria, as Sar
gon seemed likely to pursue his conquest to the
south, though some assign these chapters to the
time when Sennacherib was proceeding against
Jerusalem. The prophet was at all times opposed
to military preparations for resistance, and was
especially fierce in denouncing those who sought
the alliance of Egypt. The almost invariable sequel
to his urging submission to what he regarded as
the purging infliction of the Lord, was a promise
of future greatness when the nation had been
cleansed of its sins.
Sargon was diverted from the purpose of subju
gating Judah, if he had such a purpose at the
time, and Avhile he was detained in his own realm
and was planning a campaign against Egypt, there
Avere some futile efforts to form a league against
him betAveen Judah, Philistia, and neighboring
countries, and a constant prompting to an alliance

308 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
with Egypt. To this interval may be assigned the
curious bit of narrative, chapter xx., and the last
eleven verses of xxii.
The real peril of Judah came with the invasion
of Sennacherib, and the alarm at Jerusalem was
intense. This is referred to in the passage xvii.
12-xviii. Chapters xxxii. 9-xxxiii. belong to the
same exciting time, and possibly also what precedes
them from the beginning of chapter xxix., though
this seems to apply better to the threatened com
ing of Sargon after the fall of Samaria. Chapters
xxxvi. and xxxvii., which are mainly narrative, were
made up by the editor of the collection from the
mass of material in his hands, and contain some
passages of Isaiah's characteristic declamation.
Chapter xxxviii. seems to have been added to pre
serve Hezekiah's song of gratitude, and xxxix. is a
supplementary narrative in which the prophet is
credited with a prediction of the Babylonian con
quest. Of the omitted chapters, xiii. to xiv. 23, xxi. 1-
10, xxxiv., and xxxv. belong to the time of the
siege of Babylon by Cyrus, and are sometimes
credited to the author of the series of chapters
beginning with xl., known as the "second Isaiah."
The editor's introductory line to xiii. is of course
erroneous. Verses 24-27 of chapter xiv. is a mis
placed fragment of the time of Sennacherib's in-

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH 309
vasion, and the rest of that chapter relates to the
expedition of Sargon against those who had re
sisted him, verse 28 being another error of the
editor. Chapters xv. and xvi. have aUeady been
accounted for, and were evidently used by Isaiah
to reinforce his own menace against Moab. The
first ten verses of chapter xxi. are assigned by
some critics to the time of Sargon's conquest of
Babylonia, after the fall of Samaria, Avhich re
moved a protecting barrier from Judah. The
other verses are inserted fragments to which there
is no cleAv.
It is a matter of dispute whether the last twenty-
seven chapters of Isaiah belong entirely to the
period of the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus
and the deliverance and return of the exiles of
Israel, and are wholly the production of the great
anonymous prophet who so exultingly announced
the good tidings to Sion. This writer may have
purposely shrouded himself in mystery and as
sumed the name and manner of his prototype, Avith
whose works he was evidently familiar. The first
nine of these chapters flow on continuously from
the first word of comfort to the people of Jeru
salem to the summons to go forth from Babylon.
Then there is a change, and from xlix. to Ui. 13
there is a note of anxiety and exhortation, and no
reference to Babylon or to Cyrus. The writer

310 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
seems to take the deliverance as an accomplished
fact, and to be looking with solicitude to the future.
There is no doubt about a single authorship and
one central event thus far ; but there is an abrupt
transition and a change of style at Ui. 14, and
from that point to the end of the book there ap
pear to be a number of inserted passages and
additions which are differently accounted for.
One theory is that Ui. 13— liii. belongs to a period
of persecution, and depicts an ideal representative
of martyrdom, perhaps in the reign of Manasseh,
and that lvi. 9-lvii. is of a similar character and
by the same hand ; that lvi. 1-8, Iviii., and lix.
are isolated exhortations and of post-exUic origin ;
that lxiii. 7-lxiv. was a lament in the early part
of the exile by one who was left behind in Pales
tine ; that Ixv. was the work of a Jew returned
from the exile, and that lxvi. consists of two parts,
verses 1-4, and 5-24, the latter being written after
the restoration of the temple.
These are matters of inference from data that
are insufficient to support positive conclusions,
but these closing chapters are evidently a com
posite of various material, and the whole book
was pieced together, long after the return from
exile, by a compiler who did not regard the task
as one requiring particular care or special rever
ence for the documents in his hands. He had no

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH 311
idea of the trouble he Avas making by his manner
of preserving this precious material for future
generations, or of the different spirit in which it
would be regarded from age to age, until daring-
minds should try at last to trace it to its origin.
Its highest significance cannot be changed by any
searching of its sources.

XII
MICAH, NAHUM, ZEPHANIAH
We have seven short chapters of prophetic
Avriting under the name of Micah of Morasheth,
Avho was a contemporary of Isaiah, but whether
these all emanated from the same source is a ques
tion upon which critics differ. There seems to be
no doubt about the first five chapters. The intro
ductory note of the collector is, as usual, inexact,
for these utterances appear to belong mostly, if
not Avholly, to the early years of Hezekiah's reign.
Micah's general views were in accord Avith those of
Isaiah, but he was a provincial on the Philistine
border, remote from the activity of the capital, and
shows an intense sympathy for the poor and
loAvly, who are victims of the exaction and oppres
sion of the rich and powerful. In the first three
chapters he includes the sins of Ephraim and Judah
in one SAveeping denunciation Avith threats of divine
retribution, directed mainly against the rulers, the
corrupt priests, and the false prophets. The
menace of destruction Avas no doubt inspired by
the Assyrian invasion, but Micah seems to include

MICAH, NAHUM, ZEPHANIAH 313
in it only the capital cities, Avhich Avere the centres
of evU-doing.
A fragment of the promise of restoration appears
in verses 12, 13 of chapter ii., and chapters iv. and
v. are mainly devoted to the future triumph of Sion
over her enemies under a new ruler of the house of
David. This Avas a dominant idea of the prophets
of that age, and the opening verses of chapter iv.
Avere part of a common stock of prediction as to the
"latter days," Avhen aU nations were to be subject
to Jerusalem under the sovereignty of Jehovah.
The last two chapters of the book, Avhether by
the same author as what precedes or not, evidently
relate to a different situation, and there is a dis
tinct division into two parts after verse 6 of chap
ter vii. These two parts are probably by different
hands, and neither that of Micah the Morashite.
The former is plausibly assigned to the evil clays
of king Manasseh, and the latter appears to be
long to the period of the exile, Avhen the waUs of
Jerusalem were broken down and the faithful were
Avaiting for the Lord to turn again and have com
passion on his people. There are many corrup
tions of text and errors of transcription in the Book
of Micah, and the reference to Babylon in iv. 10
is regarded by some as a marginal gloss, though
it might have been meant for Assyria, which then
ruled at Babylon as well as at Nineveh.

314 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
There is no doubt that " the book of the vision
of Nahum the Elkoshite " belongs to the time of
Manasseh, but it is not concerned Avith the sins of
Judah or the iniquities of its ruling class. The
country had been for some time in peaceful subjec
tion to Assyria, but that power began to show
symptoms of dissolution and was threatened on
the north and east by hordes of Scythians and by
the aggressive combination of the Medes and Per
sians. Quick to scent disaster impending over its
enemies the prophetic genius of Israel started up
with a fierce tirade against the great capital of
the Assyrian empire. Nineveh was doomed and
Nahum was prompt to attribute its coming de
struction to the wrath of the God of Israel, whose
people had suffered so much at the hands of the
arrogant tyrant of " the bloody city." He draws a
terrible picture of Jehovah's might and fury and
the havoc he made of his enemies when aroused,
and of the consequences to Nineveh when his wrath
should be poured upon her devoted walls and
towers. The tone of the prophecy is one of patriotic
indignation and a thirst for vengeance upon the
enemies of Israel, and there is nothing in it of
that softer spirit which looked to subjugation as a
means of conversion, and to a final reign of peace
and righteousness at Jerusalem. That spirit

MICAH, NAHUM, ZEPHANIAH 315
slumbered in the clays of Manasseh. Nineveh
did not fall for some time after Nahum's fierce
predictions, and her fate was finally the conse
quence of the irresistible course of human events.
In the early years of Josiah, while the young
king was still under the direction of his mother's
regency, about 630 B.C., the spirit of prophecy
awoke again with all the old intensity. It found
voice first in Zephaniah (Sophonias in the Greek
version), whose three ringing chapters have come
down to us. The accumulated evils of a long
period of degeneracy, especially of relapse into
idolatry and corrupt practices, so excited his wrath
that he set out with a prediction of universal de
struction. The vials of his hot indignation Avere
poured out upon Judah and Canaan, upon all their
hostUe neighbors, and upon their remoter enemies
of Egypt and Assyria. Those of Egypt are spoken
of as Ethiopians, as that country was then under
an Ethiopian dynasty. The fact that Nineveh
was destined to become a "desolation," through
the conquest of the Medes, was now plainer than
ever, and gave confidence to the prophet's menaces
of universal disaster.
But the characteristic passage of Zephaniah,
presaging the Messianic idea of a later time, is
that which pictures the survival of a " remnant,"
of an " afflicted and poor people," out of which

316 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
shall be built up a new nation. The germ of this
faith appeared in the earliest prophets and de
veloped through the whole line. In Zephaniah,
the forerunner of Jeremiah, it appeared free from
any reference to a new scion of the house of David.
The Lord was to be King of Israel in the midst
of Jerusalem.

XIII
THE BOOK OF THE PEOPHET JEEEMIAH
To read the Book of Jeremiah with understand
ing and appreciation, one must remember that it
is a compilation made in the time of the Babylo
nian exile, and subjected to much revision after-
Avard. The prophet himself was carried aAvay,
after the capture of Jerusalem, with the party of
insurgents Avhich took refuge in Egypt, and the
collection contains some of his utterances after
that event. As Baruch, Avho is mentioned as hav
ing Avritten out his warnings in the time of Jehoia
kim, was his companion, it is a natural inference
that this scribe made his AA'ay to join the cap
tives in Babylonia, perhaps after the prophet's
death, Avith the remnants of the latter's writings.
Whether these productions and the narratives
connected with them Avere carried in part from
Jerusalem, and in part from Egypt, or hoAvever
they may have been got together, they Avere evi
dently in great disorder, and Avere collated and
arranged by the author Avho completed the Book
of Kings. It is in a great measure a supplement

318 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
to that book, covering the last thirty or forty years
of the history of Judah. In the Book of Kings
there is no mention of Jeremiah, who played so
prominent a part in the reign of Josiah and his suc
cessors, and the events of that important period
are scantily treated. The deficiency is supplied
by the narratives in the Book of Jeremiah.
It is composed in considerable part of those
narratives, introducing passages of what it is usual
to call "prophecy," or explaining their occasion
and consequences. Sometimes the narratives ap
pear to be by the hand of the prophet himself
speaking in the first person, and sometimes the
narration is in the third person, as if written by
another using material left by him. In some
cases there are eA'ident paraphrases, made long
after the events referred to, and even direct inter
polations, and the whole is interspersed here and
there Avith ejaculations of prayer or imprecation
and expressions of the prophet's feelings at criti
cal times in his career. Whether these are in his
own language or made by an editor from notes
left by him, can, of course, not be determined, but
it is certain that the whole mass of material Avas
freely dealt Avith at the time the compilation Avas
made, and afterward in the processes of copying
and revising. There Avas more than one version of
the book long extant, and the one used by the

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH 319
Greek translators at Alexandria differed materi
ally from that which became the basis of modern
translations in the Old Testament. The former
contained few additions, but many omissions and
variations, and one or tAvo important differences of
arrangement. The book as we haAre it is a com
posite production, completed sometime after the
restoration of Jerusalem.
The introductory note is that of an editor, and
the rest of the first chapter, giving an account of
the prophet's " inspiration," and corresponding to
chapter vi. in Isaiah, if the work of the prophet
himself, which is subject to doubt, was written
after, and not before, the utterances to which it is
preliminary. The prophecies began in the thir
teenth year of Josiah, Avho was stUl a youth, when
the evil state of things inherited from Manasseh
continued. The narrative passage in regard to
the prophet's treatment in his native village, at
the end of chapter xi., seems to be a reminiscence.
The chapters from the second to the ninth, in
clusive, contain the reproaches and warnings
uttered by Jeremiah in the early years of his
mission, before the reforms of Josiah, and they
have the spirit and tone of the earlier prophets,
Avith whose works he was familiar. He also shows,
here and elsewhere, acquaintance Avith the existing
annals of his country and with the Book of Job,

320 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the thought of which is frequently reflected in his
writings. It is an interesting fact that from the
promulgation of the Deuteronomic code, and the
institution of reforms by Josiah, to the death of
that monarch, a period of thirteen years, no utter
ances of the prophet appear which have come
down to us, except the first seventeen verses of
chapter xi., which seem to be a sort of proclama
tion of the new laAv, and xvii. 19-27, which is a
special proclamation of the rule of Sabbath ob-
senrance. The inference is almost irresistible that
during these years of apparent silence Jeremiah
Avas active in the work of formulating and apply
ing to a new order of things the Deuteronomic
legislation. After the invasion of the Egyptian monarch
Necho, the death of Josiah, the dethronement of
Jehoahaz, and the elevation of Jehoiakim, the
prophet speedily found his voice, for things Avere
relapsing into the old evil Avay of the detested
Manasseh. Chapters xxii. 1-19, xxvi., and xiv.
1-xv. 9 belong to the beginning of Jehoiakim's
reign, the passage which comes earlier in the
book being later in time. In all the earlier warn
ings there Avas a note of alarm about a threatened
invasion from the North, due to disquieting rumors
of the movements of hordes of Scythians, and the
prophet drew a terrible picture of the consequence

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH 32L
of the coming of a cruel and merciless people from
the uttermost parts of the earth. But now there was
a more tangible ground for working upon the
fears of the people, for Nebuchadnezzar was about
to turn from Egyptian conquest to give attention
to his rebellious tributaries.
A misplaced chapter, now numbered xlvi., con
tains the prophet's exultation in Nebuchadnezzar's
victory over Egypt, Avhich is folloAved by visions
of terror for all the people around Palestine, ex
tending to chapter xlix. 33. Chapter xxv., which
appears to relate to the same time, is an interpola
tion made during the captivity. Evidence of this,
if needed, is found in the reference to Jeremiah's
prophecies " written in this book," and to the deso
lation of the cities of Judah, "as it is this day."
But the whole chapter was evidently Avritten after
the event. Chapters xvi.-xvii. 18, xviii., and other
passages dwelling on the sins of the people and
their impending punishment, may belong to the
time of the first rumors of Nebuchadnezzar's com
ing. There are several prophecies virtually dated
as of the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Chapter xxxvi.
contains the account of the reading of Jeremiah's
warnings to the king. Chapter xiv., relating to
the same incident, is one of the interpolated bits of
narrative. The period of terror, when Nebuchadnezzar's
21

322 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
army was approaching to chastise the foolish re
volt of Jehoiakim, is vividly portrayed in the ut
terances of the prophet, who seemed to exult in
the crushing poAver of the king of Babylon, who
was characterized as the servant of Jehovah in
punishing his recreant people. Before he reached
Jerusalem Jehoiakim died and Avas succeeded by
his son under the name of Jehoiachin, but though
the latter promptly made his submission to Ne
buchadnezzar, he was deposed and carried away
captive, Avhile his father's brother Avas placed on
the throne, with the new name Zedekiah, last of
the Judean kings. This first transportation oc
curred 598 b.c.
Jeremiah's contemptuous opinion of the imme
diate successors of Josiah found expression in
Avhat is chapter xxii. to verse 19 of the book bear
ing his name, and his special aversion to Jehoia
chin, whom he calls Coniah, and to the queen-
mother, Nehusta, appears in the passage xxii.
20-xxiii. 8. Verses 17-25 of chapter x. and chap
ter xiii. belong to the period of intense terror
betAveen the time of Jehoiakim's death and the
arrival of the Babylonian army. The story of
the Eechabites Avho took refuge at Jerusalem on
the approach of this army, and whose character
and habits commended them so warmly to Jere
miah, is contained in chapter xxxv. The neAV king's

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH 323
submission Avas complete, and Nebuchadnezzar re
turned to Babylon, but the prophet was not pla
cated, as appears by the ill omen Avhich he an
nounced in chapter xxiv.
There were prophets who counselled resistance
to the Chaldean power and throwing off the yoke
of Babylon. These provoked the wrath of Jere
miah. There is a general denunciation of the false
prophets in chapter xxiii., beginning with verse 9.
Chapters xxvii. and xxviii. belong to the first part
of Zedekiah's reign, when the contentions were
going on about the policy of resistance and Jere
miah was vehemently opposing the king's evil
counsellors and threatening the return of Ne
buchadnezzar, which this policy would surely
bring about. At about the same time he sent his
message to those already in exile, chapter xxix.
virtually advising them to make up their minds
to stay where they were.
The prophet's constant denunciations and pre
dictions of evil at this time got him into trouble,
and some of his speeches, together with accounts
of the effect, are found in chapters xix. and xx.
Efforts to silence him, when his predictions seemed
to be in the way of fulfilment by Nebuchadnezzar's
return, were unavailing, as appears in chapter xxi.
At chapter xxxii. begins a series of narratives and
prophecies belonging to the time of the second

324 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
siege and the eve of the final carrying away to
Babylon. But these three chapters Avere evidently
put in form during the captivity, doubtless from
material, in part at least, left by the prophet. The
two preceding chapters, xxx. and xxxi., are also of
the time of the captivity, and not in Jeremiah's
manner. They are attributed by some to the
anonymous Avriter known as the second Isaiah.
Verses 14-26 of xxxiii. are an interpolation of the
latter days of the exile. Chapters xxxvii.-xliv.
are almost Avholly narrative matter from the hand
of the compiler of the book, giving an account of
the closing events of the kingdom of Judah. Prob
ably the prophet had no part in it, but the ful-
minations attributed to him in Egypt are too
characteristic not to be genuine.
There has been much controversy about the
prophecies in chapters 1. and li., but they are plainly
much later than Jeremiah, of about the same time
as chapters xl. to xlviii. of Isaiah, and possibly
by the same author. There is nothing in the
manner in Avhich these books Avere made up and
published to the Avorld to justify anyone in attach
ing the least Aveight to the introductory Avords,
" by Jeremiah the prophet," or the final words,
" thus far are the Avords of Jeremiah." The one
certain thing is that they were first uttered long
after his death.

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH 325
The last chapter of Jeremiah merely repeats
from the Book of Kings the prosaic close of the sad
story of the Jewish struggle for an independent
national life, Avhich the religious spirit of the race
made impossible. Theocracy and the state were
irreconcilable ideas, and the latter had to die that
the former might Uve.

XIV
HABAKKUK, ANONYMOUS CHAPTEES ;
LAMENTATIONS
Three chapters have come down to us from a
prophet who was a contemporary of Jeremiah, but
they seem to relate wholly to the critical time
when the first invasion of Nebuchadnezzar was
impending, after his victory over the Egyptians at
Carchemish in the days of Jehoiakim. Two of
these chapters constitute the sort of declamation
knoAvn as prophecy and the other is designated as
a prayer, but is more properly a hymn or psalm.
Habakkuk possessed a calmer and more exalted
spirit than Jeremiah, and that may be why so
little has survived from his pen. This prophecy,
which is in part in the form of a dialogue Avith
Jehovah, and reminds one of Job, has a higher
literary quality than the fierce tirades of his more
energetic contemporary. It sIioavs also more sym
pathy for his own country and dwells upon the
punishment its enemies are to receive. The hymn
of praise and confidence in Jehovah of chapter iii.
is modelled on the older psalms and has no obvious

HABAKKUK, ANONYMOUS CHAPTERS 327
relation to impending or current events. The
notes at the beginning and end are no doubt edi
torial additions, as the organized musical service
pertained only to the second temple.
Three chapters of an anonymous prophet ap
pear also to belong to the time following the
death of Josiah and prior to the first siege of
Jerusalem, though their obscure and somewhat
mystical character has led to a good deal of con
troversy as to their proper place, and some have
assigned them to a date after the return from exile.
They stand as the last three chapters of Zech
ariah, with the introductory note, " the burden of
the word of the Lord concerning Israel," and show
signs of interpolation and variation at a time later
than the original composition. There is a slight
tone of contrast Avith Jeremiah in this oracle, and
it disparages the function of the professional proph
et. The references to eA'ents are too vague or too
allegorical to be identified, but the burden of the
utterance appears to be a promise of the ultimate
triumph of Judah and Jerusalem over all their
enemies. This reflects the tone of the earlier
prophets, and its spirit is not thai of the post-ex
ilic dreams of the future. It is one of the early
gleams of the prophet's vision of the time Avhen
" the Lord shall be king over the whole earth."
The book Avhich bears the title Lamentations

328 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Avas in early times attached as a sort of pendant to
Jeremiah, and its composition was attributed to
the prophet, but the association cannot be traced
within two or three centuries of his time, and is in
plain contradiction of known facts and inconsistent
with the character of the book. It had its origin
long after the prophet's death, and in a land far
distant from the scene of his last days. Moreover,
it has none of the resolute tone and masculine
spirit of that stern censor and invincible beUever
in the ultimate triumph of Jehovah's people.
The first four chapters are a series of wailing
elegies over the desolation of Jerusalem, the sins
and sufferings of her people and the just anger
of God. They are full of sorrow and humili
ation, with only subdued gleams of hope. They
were unquestionably written among the exiles
of Babylon, but just Avhen and by Avhat person
or persons it is impossible to determine. They
are artificial compositions, the tAventy-two verses
of chapters i., ii., and iv., and the twenty-two
sets of three verses in chapter iii., beginning with
the successive letters of the HebreAv alphabet, and
they were long used in the liturgical service on the
occasion of the annual Aveeping over the faU of
Jerusalem. There is a deep strain of pathos in
these dirges, but it hardly has the spontaneity of
personal grief.

HABAKKUK, ANONYMOUS CHAPTERS 329
The fifth chapter does not belong to the
original series, and the form of composition is
different. It is rather a supplication for a return
of divine favor than a mourning over its loss, and
it has almost the tone of despair. It appears to
have been written during the period of the exile,
but by one Avho Avas left in the midst of the deso
lation of Juclah. This is wholly a matter of sur
mise from the nature of its contents, for nothing is
actually knoAvn of any part of the book, except
that it appeared as a Avhole in the JeAvish script
ures long after the time to Avhich it relates. Con
necting Avritings of similar character and different
origin and associating them with some well-knoAvn
or venerated name was no uncommon practice in
the long process of making up that collection of
literature. It was in accordance Avith this prac
tice that this series of elegies was designated as
the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

XV
THE BOOK OF THE PEOPHET EZE
KIEL
Hardly any book of the Old Testament has
come down to us so free from mutilation or
change as that which contains the Avritings of the
great prophet of the Babylonian exile. Its oracles
and descriptions were arranged by himself in
their chronological order, and if they underwent
revision it was probably by his own hand. There
are variations and corruptions of text, but these
are mainly due to copyists. Ezekiel had been
brought up as a young priest at Jerusalem under
the influence of Jeremiah, was carried aAvay Avith
Jehoiachin at the time of the first transportation,
and was one of a colony of captives on the " river
Chebar," an unidentified stream, which may have
been simply the great canal at Babylon. He AAras
in constant communication with his native coun
try and familiar Avith events passing there, and in
the course of four or five years he felt called upon
to utter Avarnings against the doings of the people
and the perils they were bringing upon them-

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL 331
selves. He was in a position to appreciate the
utter futility of resisting the power of Babylon
and plotting to throw off its yoke, and foresaAv the
consequences of any such policy. Moreover, he
shared the conviction of the other prophets that
the national calamities were due to the sins of the
people and were a just infliction from the God to
whom they had proved faithless.
The first twenty-four chapters of the book em
body a series of twenty-nine oracles, covering the
three or four years preceding the siege of Jerusa
lem by Nebuchadnezzar in 590 B.C., and relating
to events there and among the exiles in Babylon.
The imagery Avith which the prophet introduced
and impressed his mission to speak for Jehovah
marked a new departure in the method of claiming
inspiration and prefigured the apocalyptic devices
of a later time. The imagery and symbolism were
derived from the Egyptian and Assyrian elements
which, Avith those of Phcenician origin, alwaj's
constituted the materials for pictorial effect among
the Hebrews, who lacked the faculty of creative
ideality. The preliminary descriptions of reArelation are
rather grotesque than poetical or impressive to
the modern mind, and the devices representing
the siege and its effects seem rather puerile.
But there is something of the old prophetic fire

332 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
in the denunciation of continued idolatry and
iniquity among a people who had evidently not
been sufficiently scourged, and in the descrip
tions of the calamities still aAvaiting them. But
these were mingled with symbolical details Avhich
seem now to detract from their effect. Ezekiel
Avas in full sympathy with Jeremiah in advocating
submission to Babylon, and in denouncing those
who counselled resistance and an Egyptian al
liance, and he could predict with certainty that the
result would be a neAV invasion, the destruction
of Jerusalem and desolation of Judah, and an
other transportation of the inhabitants. The actual
investment of the capital by a hostile army Avas
announced Avith a fierce cry of Avoe in chapter xxiv.
The old figure of harlotry, as representing the
infidelity of Israel to Jehovah, is carried to rather
a coarse extreme by this priestly prophet, though
there is no denying its expressiveness, and he
represents the idolatry to which it refers as begin
ning in Egypt and continuing to his own time,
even infecting the circle of exiles about him.
The oracles put forth by Ezekiel during the two
years' siege of Jerusalem, contained in chapters
xxv. -xxxii. of the book, are directed against the
enemies of his country, and rise to a fierce inten
sity in the threats of retribution upon Tyre and
Egypt. The predictions of dire disaster and utter

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL 833
destruction were never fulfiUed. The last five
verses of chapter xxix. are a curious addition, to
explain the non-fulfilment of the prophecy against
Tyre in chapter xxvi., but the promised recom
pense in Egypt failed also. When the fall of
Jerusalem was announced, as appears in chapter
xxxiii., the prophet set himself up as a " Avatch-
man " for his people, striving still to impress upon
them the heinousness of the offences Avhich had
brought desolation upon their land. It should be
kept in mind that the utterances which follow,
undoubtedly written out with care by Ezekiel him
self, extend over a period of fifteen or sixteen
years. They dweU first upon the delinquencies of the
shepherds of Israel, meaning the rulers, and a
consequent dispersion of the flock, but hold forth
the promise of restoration under one faithful
shepherd, even David, Avho will be prince among
them. Their enemies are again denounced and
threatened Avith destruction. From among all the
hostile nations the Lord is to gather his people,
cleansed and purified, those of Ephraim as well as
those of Judah, and they are to be established
with one king, of the house of David, under an
everlasting covenant of peace, for the vindication
of the name of Jehovah. Included among those
that are to be vanquished, as a guarantee of per-

834 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
petual peace, is Gog of the land of Magog, whereby
is figured that mysterious power of the North Avhich
had long been an object of vague terror, doubt
less including the Scythians, of whose overwhelm
ing numbers and irresistible movement there had
been rumors ever since the days of Hezekiah. In
short, all sources of danger and of fear were to be
extinguished, and the remnant of God's people
Avas to take possession of the ancient heritage.
The latest Avork of Ezekiel, beginning according
to his OAvn statement about 575 B.C., and included
in the last nine chapters of his book, consisted of
definite plans for the restoration of the temple,
of the " holy city " of his people, and full posses
sion of the land, Avith extended borders, and for
the re-establishment of the Avorship of Jehovah on
a newly organized system. He describes his plans
in the form of visions and of direct instructions
from the Lord, and goes so far as to make an allot
ment of the tribes and special provision for the
Levites, Avho are to be devoted to the service of
the temple. This Avas nearly half a century before
the actual return of the exiles and there Avas then
no prospect of deliverance. AVe knoAV nothing of
the prophet's death, but he disappears silently
from the scene, leaving his visions and promises
to nourish the hopes of the forlorn captives.
The course of human events departed widely

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL 335
from the dreams and plans of Ezekiel, but these
had a far-reaching effect nevertheless. No doubt
they sustained the courage and stimulated the
hopes of the exiled people, and held them to the
never-failing purpose of keeping themselves apart
and regaining the land of a promise that could
never fafi, and of exalting Sion as " the centre of
a world's desire." While irresistible forces pre
vented these plans from being realized, for the
dispersed tribes were never to be gathered again,
and no prince of the house of DaAdd was ever
again to sit upon a throne in Jerusalem, they were
not forgotten, and were not without effect Avhen
the poAver of Persia broke the bonds of Babylon
and let the people go, what time the clarion voice
of the second Isaiah inflamed to fever heat the
new hopes of the scattered nation.
It Avas not upon the lines laid clown in the visions
of Ezekiel that the temple Avas restored, Jerusalem
was rebuilt, and the land partitioned, and there
Avas no such conquest over the enemies of Israel or
extension of the poAver of the kingdom of Sion over
the earth. But it Avas upon those lines that the
service of the second temple Avas built up and the
Levitical law developed. They were carried be
yond Ezekiel's outlines in many directions, but he
furnished the general design, and the effect appears
not only in the system which grew up, but in a

336 THE JE WISH SCRIPTURES
conforming of the oldest records to a sanction of
the neAv order of things. Not only laws and acts
attributed to Moses, but the partition and allot
ment of lands, and the provision for Levites, cred
ited to Joshua, had their origin in the fervid brain
of the prophet of the captivity, though the high-
priesthood, with Aaron as the mythical head of the
line, and the inner sanctuary, based upon the
elaborate ark in the tent of meeting, were later than
his conception. The priests and scribes of the
second temple Avere long busy in adapting the
story of the past to the support of the system then
established, as a means of consecrating and
strengthening it ; but the most conspicuous lumin
ary of that dark interval between the history of
Israel as a nation and the history of Judaism as
an institution Avas the prophet who saw visions
and dreamed dreams by the " river Chebar."

XVI
HAGGAI, ZECHAEIAH, MALACHI
The second year of Darius Avas the year 520
B.C., sixteen years after the return from captivity,
and, notAvithstanding the account in the Book of
Ezra, Avhich represents the work of rebuilding the
temple as having been taken up with promptness
and zeal, it would seem from the reproaches of Hag
gai that it had languished, Avhile the people devoted
themselves to repairing their own fortunes, until
overtaken by famine and "hard times." Haggai
Avas apparently an old man, perhaps one of those
who had seen " this house in its former glory."
The comparative feeblenesses of his utterances is
consistent Avith that supposition. The four brief
oracles which, Avith slight narratives, constitute
the tAvo chapters of his " prophecy," cover only a
short space of three or four months, and nothing
more is heard of him.
He begins by mildly reproaching the people for
their apathy and for neglecting the house of the
Lord while preparing " ceiled houses " for them
selves, and attributes the drought from which
22

338 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the land suffered to this indifference. Having
" stirred up " the work of the house of the Lord,
he endeavors to comfort the people for the hum
bleness of the beginning, and to encourage them
with the promise that the Lord of hosts Avould
come to their rescue with the riches of the nations,
and make the latter glory of the temple greater
than its former glory. Blessing and plenty Avere
to begin from the laying of the foundation of the
Lord's temple. The final word of the aged proph
et Avas a repetition of the ancient promise of
future greatness for the nation, and he evidently
fixed his hopes upon Zerubbabel to restore the
royal line of David.
Zechariah, Avho began to speak even before
Haggai ceased, refers to himself as a " young man."
He sets out Avith an anxious reminder of what the
people had suffered in the past through a disre
gard of the messages of the prophets, and with an
appeal to avoid the evil Avays of the fathers.
Then he proceeds with a series of visions of the
night, representing the Lord as having " Avaked up
out of his holy habitation," with the design of
wreaking vengeance upon the nations which he
had used in afflicting Israel, and of restoring Sion
as the centre of his power and his beneficence,
Avhither should gather not only the dispersed
people but many nations which Avere to join them-

HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, MALACHI 339
selves to the Lord. The symbolism Avhich figures
the restoration of power at Jerusalem was doubt
less intentionally obscure, on account of the Per
sian authority, Avhich might be offended by any
distinct claims.
There is evidence in the vision of chapters
iii. and iv. of the conflict between the secular au
thority of Zerubbabel and the priestly authority
of Joshua, and the prophet appears as a partisan
of the latter, and finally, in the latter part of chap
ter vi., has him crowned as the ruler, while the
prince of the house of David seems to disappear.
The promised "Branch," or shoot from the root
of Jesse, appears thus to take form in the high-
priest. The visions of chapter v. are symbolical
of purging the land of crimes and transferring its
guilt to Chaldea, Avhile the first part of chapter
vi. represents the chariots of the Lord as going
over the earth to the four Avinds to quiet the spirit
of hostility.
There is an interval between these visions and
the oracles of chapters vii. and viii., which contain
another reminder of the evil doings of the past and
their consequences, and an appeal to heed the
Avords of the Lord, followed by another glowing
promise of greatness and prosperity in the future,
Avhen " many peoples and strong nations " should
come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem.

340 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
These eight chapters constitute all the genuine
writings of Zechariah, the rest of the book consist
ing of additions of older material Avhich have al
ready been accounted for.
There was one more prophet in Israel, at the
time Avhen Nehemiah was striving to build up the
service in the restored temple, to enforce observ
ance of the law, and to keep the people from in
termarrying with those who were not of their
faith, and thereby falling into idolatrous ways.
It is not impossible that Maleaki, " my messen
ger," was a proper name, but it is not likely.
Men now ceased to come forward in their own per
son as spokesmen of Jehovah, and the time had
gone by for producing effect by attaching anony
mous oracles to an ancient and venerated name.
Hence the "burden of the Lord" appeared in
this case as having come simply by "Maleaki,"
the messenger. But it is a melancholy burden, in
dicating the enormous lapse from the spirit of
ancient prophecy and the deep depression of the
nation's hopes. The intensely practical way in
Avhich human forces proceeded in spite of the prom
ises of what Jehovah was going to do had a dis
couraging effect.
The burden of the complaint now was against
the priests for polluting the altars with imperfect
sacrifices, and against the people for slighting

HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, MALACHI 341
their offerings and oblations, and profaning the
holiness of the Lord by marrying Avith the heathen.
The Levitical system was producing its effect, and
Pharisaism was already growing. The old threats
of chastising and purifying the nation and restoring
a remnant to greatness and future glory were no
longer available. The nation was dead, and its
hopes of poAver and grandeur were buried. The
last voice of prophecy was not clear or strong. It
came to deal not with the fate of a nation among the
nations, but with the fate of the righteous and the
wicked among the people. The Jewish mind was
still closed to the idea of reAvard and punishment
after this life, but it Avas driven to a day of retri
bution of some kind, as a justification of its in
vincible faith. There Avas no belief in a sur
vival or reAdval after death, but, according to the
accepted legend, Elijah had never died, but had
been taken up bodily to be among the " sons of
God," and therefore he might be sent as the fore
runner of "the great and terrible day." With
this vague conception of a day of retribution out
of Avhich so much was to be Avrought in later times
the volume of Hebrew prophecy closed.

XVII
ESTHEE
The Book of Esther is not historical. Neither
is it religious or moral. There is no historical
evidence and no probability that Xerxes (Aha-
suerus), the king of the Persians, ever made a
JeAvess his queen, or exalted a JeAv to the highest
official station in place of a fallen favorite, fallen
under the resentment of the JeAv and his com
patriots on account of an atrocious design against
them. The JeAvs had derived from the Persians
a secular festival, Avhich was introduced into Pal
estine, and which gradually took on a religious
character and came to be knoAvn as the Purim.
It was not religious in its origin or its early ob
servance, but it was common among the Jews to
attach their feast-days to some sort of legend as
sociating them with significant incidents of their
history, real or imaginary. This story is an ob
vious fiction to account for the Purim and invest
it with the pride of the Jewish race, Avhich in
one form or another was always conspicuous and
irrepressible.

ESTHER 343
Apart from the innate improbability that ap
pears in every line, its unknown author could not
have Avritten Avithin a hundred years of the events
he professes to relate, and there is no evidence of
the existence of the production for a century or
two later still. It seems to belong to the period
of literary decadence in which the Book of Chron
icles Avas produced and that of Ezra was com
piled. There is a certain affinity between it and
the intercalated passage in Ezra from iv. 6 to vi.
13, in which the dates of Persian kings are hope
lessly confused. What chance is there that a
narrative written then, with such minute detail,
could be based upon facts, of which no other
evidence survived, and which Avere in themselves
wil dly improbable ? It Avas very likely never meant
by the Jewish mind to be taken as fact, and it
is chiefly interesting as a late example of that
peculiar art of the ancient HebreAV for giving a
matter-of-fact appearance to a narration of imag
inary and essentially improbable events, in pur
suance of some definite purpose, generally religious
or ethical.
The Deity is not mentioned or indirectly al
luded to in the book, nor is anything referred to
which has any relation to the faith of Israel.
Neither does the book contain any sound moral
sentiment or meaning, but it is saturated Avith

344 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
pride of race in its most offensive guise. Esther
is represented as being exalted to the place of
favorite queen to the luxurious king by a sort of
craft on the part of herself and her uncle, not cred
itable to either or to their race. There is nothing
admirable in Mordecai's refusal to show the cus
tomary deference to the chief dignitary of the em
pire, but it flattered the Jewish egotism ; and it
is Ukely that in an actual case the dignitary
would have made short Avork of the offender, in
stead of undertaking to exterminate his compa
triots in one hundred and twenty-seven provinces,
supposing even a Persian king to have been capa
ble of acceding to such an extraordinary design for
a money bribe. Even if Xerxes had been willing
to exterminate all the JeAvs in his dominion to
please Haman, and for the purpose of reaching
Mordecai, who was all the while within easy reach,
he Avould hardly have consented, after the evil de
sign was exposed, to let these Jews massacre
seventy-five thousand of his native subjects. If
he had done so, it would have been a monstrous
act, and it is no less monstrous to suppose that
Esther and Mordecai really compassed that whole
sale slaughter. Even admitting that Haman, in
the case supposed, deserved hanging on his own
unnecessarily exalted gibbet, where was the justice
in slaying his ten sons and his fellow-citizens to

ESTHER 345
the number of five hundred, besides other of his
countrymen by thousands, and elevating the author
of the Avhole bloody business to the highest office
in the state ?
No, the Book of Esther is not a religious book,
it inculcates no moral lesson, and happily it is
not historical. It does not even account for the
Purim, and it exhibits the Hebrew in exile in an
odious Ught. There is surely nothing in it of the
spirit of Christianity, or even of the better spirit
of Judaism. It is not referred to in the New
Testament, and it Avas admitted to the Hebrew
canon, after much hesitation and dispute, even
among strictly Jewish authorities, probably af
ter the beginning of the Christian era, and then
only because of its relation to the feast of the
Purim.

XVHI
THE BOOK OF JOB
Taking up now the Book of Job, we are carried
back to the loftiest height of the ancient HebreAV
literature, in the golden age of Hezekiah, when
the ringing voice of Isaiah was still heard among
the living. There has been much disputation
about the time and authorship of this grand pro
duction. There is noAvhere in it a reference to
place or event that will help to fix its date or
throw light upon the circumstances of its com
position. It is essentially dramatic in character,
the scene is thrown back to a patriarchal age, the
personages are foreign to the soil of Israel, and
the atmosphere is that of the wide universe.
Formerly there was an opinion that it was not in
its origin a Hebrew production, but was adopted
and translated from the work of some Idumean
or Arabian sage. Not only was that opinion Avith-
out Avarrant, but of all the books of the Old Testa
ment this contains the most perfect embodiment
of the Hebrew spirit. Its substance is the very
philosophy at the bottom of the faith of Israel,

THE BOOK OF JOB 347
and it deals with the insoluble problem of that
faith. Its exalted tone, the mighty sweep of its ex
pression, and the firm vibration of its language
seem to exclude it from any place much earlier
or much later than the first great prophet of
Jerusalem. One Avould say that the author was
familiar with the patriarchal legends and the
grandiose conceptions of the account of the earlv
days of the world, and that he kneAv nothing of
the laws and statutes and sacrificial requirements
with which the HebreAV genius Avas gradually put
in bonds. Like so many other great productions
of that genius, this one magnificent poem comes
do-wn to us without name or date, but it bears the
ineffaceable impress of the faith that carried Israel
through so many trials, only to mould and hammer
its qualities into a temper which contact Avith other
races for ages could not relax.
The foundation of the Hebrew faith at its high
est was belief in an all-poAverful God, Avho in his
dealings Avith men was righteous altogether, doing
full justice in this world, "here on this bank and
shoal of time." It refused to look bej'ond for rec
ompense or retribution. In spite of calamities,
in the face of experience, this faith Avas persisted
in, with many risings and fallings, for wellnigh
a thousand years. Wrong-doing was punished,

348 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
right-doing had its reward. If there Avas disaster
or suffering it Avas on account of sin, and every
seeming contradiction of this principle had its ex
planation in some inscrutable design of a Deity
that could not err. This is the theme of Job.
It is introduced by a prose prologue describ
ing the righteousness and prosperity of the man of
Uz, and the calamities that befell him, as a test of
his uprightness. Then came his series of com
plaints and appeals, each, except the last, followed
by a reply from one of his three friends. The
burden of Job's protest is against the validity, in
his own case, of the doctrine of Avhich he is to be
made the great exemplar. He is conscious of his
rectitude and rejects Avith scorn every imputation
that he is punished for wrong-doing, Avhile the re
plies of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are constant
variations on the theme that God is incapable of
injustice ; that Avhere evident punishment is going
on there must have been sin, and it is sheer pre
sumption to pretend otherAvise.
The debate goes on upon a rising scale, and Job
not only withers his accusers with indignant scorn,
but boldly challenges God himself to justify his
treatment of a faithful servitor. Finally the Al
mighty ansAvers the challenge out of the whirlwind,
but the answer consists of an overpowering
portrayal of the might and wisdom of God, the in-

THE BOOK OF JOB 349
significance of man, and the presumption of ques
tioning the justice of his treatment. Job is si
lenced and humbled, but, after all, his indictment
is untried, and the insoluble problem is left un
solved, and it has never since been solved. Tak
ing into account only this life, no one has suc
ceeded in justifying the Avays of God to man, and
human experience keeps up an everlasting denial of
the fundamental doctrine of the old faith of Israel,
that the righteous is reAvarded with prosperity and
long life, Avhile the wicked encounters adversity
and is cut off in the midst of his days.
There can be no doubt that the long discourse
of Elihu, interposed betAveen the end of " the
words of Job," and the answer to them out of the
whirbvind, is a later production and by a different
hand. Dignified and noble though this passage
may seem, compared to Avhat precedes and follows
it is a flat and arid plain betAveen tAvo sublime
heights. It was evidently written by one Avho Avas
not satisfied Avith the arguments of Job's three
friends, and Avas especially discontented to have
them abandon the field after his last prolonged
plea. But this new advocate of the Almighty's
cause hardly strengthens the case. He goes over
the same ground in a more pretentious but less
eloquent and forcible style, and leaves it much as
he found it.

350 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
It has been questioned Avhether the part of Job's
last discourse from chapter xxvii. 7 to the end of
chapter xxviii., is a genuine portion of the original,
because in it he seems to abandon his ground and
practicaUy to accept the argument of his friends
as to the immutable justice and inscrutable wisdom
of God. Some have been disposed to regard it as
the final reply of Zophar, since in the text as it
stands he is not given a third turn like the others.
But it may have been part of the design of the
author to represent Job in his calmer moments as
accepting the theory of God's justice to the fullest
extent, while still insisting upon his OAvn rectitude
and defying anybody to sustain charges against
his life. Some have also maintained that the final
description of the behemoth and leviathan are
additions, but if so, they must have been added by
the author of the rest of the poem.
The genuineness of the prose prologue and
epilogue has been questioned, but they form a
necessary frame to the dramatic scene. The use
of the name Jehovah in these, while in the dis
courses the Deity is designated as El, Eloah, or
Shaddai, is in keeping Avith the dramatic purpose
and form of the composition. The epilogue opens
the door of escape for the doctrine which really
had the worst of the argument, for Job is repre
sented as receiving in the end the proper recom-

THE BOOK OF JOB 351
pense of his righteousness in redoubled prosperity
and prolonged life. There seems to be a curious
inconsistency in the representation that Job Avas
commended as saying of the Lord " the thing that
Avas right," though he had been rebuked for dark
ening counsel by Avords Avithout knowledge, Avhile
the officious advocates of the Almighty's cause had
to make humble reparation for their folly. But
this is quite in keeping with the lack of attention
to details of literary art in some of the greatest
productions of the Semitic mind, so long as the
general purpose AA'as served.
There are tAvo points regarding which it may be
well to note a common misconception. There is
nothing more certain than that the idea of life
after death, or of resurrection in any form, was
utterly foreign to the theology of the Hebrews be
fore they came into subjection to foreign poAvers.
In the verses near the end of chapter xix. Job
makes an appeal for pity at the terrible condition
to Avhich he is reduced by disease, expresses the
wish that an indelible record might be made of
his Avords, and then declares his unconquerable
confidence that, though his body should be utterly
Avasted aAvay, his vindicator would yet stand upon
the earth, and that he Avould see him, in restored
flesh and health. This is consistent with his faith,
with the doctrine of the author of the poem, and with

352 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
the theology of the greatest teachers and prophets
of Israel.
The other point to be noted is that the Satan of
the prologue has no analogy with the spirit of evil
of the Persian mythology or the Christian theol
ogy. He is simply one of the messengers or agents
Avhich Jehovah Avas sometimes represented as hav
ing at his command to serve his OAvn purposes.
In the character of the "adversary" he is used as
the instrument for bringing affliction upon Job to
test his fidelity, and so far as we can assign him a
general function from this slight allusion, it seems
to have been that of a detective, with the cynical
vieAV of human nature which is apt to belong to
that character.

XIX
THE PSALMS
It would be interesting, if it were possible, to
trace to their sources and assign to their several
periods of production, the poems, hymns, and
songs of praise that constitute the collection known
as The Psalms, but the effort to do so, with the
surviving data, would be tedious, and it would be
futile. The periods of production extend over
something like eight centuries, and in the collec
tion are confused reflections of the vicissitudes of
the people, and the state of feeling produced by
them, from the establishment of the first kingdom
to the struggle of the Maccabees for emancipation
from the tyranny of the Seleucides.
No considerable part of the collection Avas made
until the restoration of the temple service after
the return from captivity, and then it Avas intended
primarily for the uses of that service, and not as
examples of poetical production or illustrations of
history. Additions were made from time to time,
with little care for classification and no regard for
chronological order. NeAv pieces might at any
23

854 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
time be inserted in the older collections, and old
pieces still floating unattached might be included
in the iicav additions. Moreover, new hymns were
sometimes made from old material, parts of Avhich
had already appeared in the mass, and changes
and adaptations were freely made. Naturally
these pieces Avere much copied and became subject
to a multitude of textual errors. So the mass went
on groAving and varying in detail until it was
finally fixed by the Hebrew Canon and by the
Greek version of the Septuagint.
There it appears, Uke the law, divided into five
books ; and as the Avhole mass of the law, the
work of centuries, was attributed to Moses, from
whom its germs may have been derived, so the
whole varied liturgy and limnology of the temple
were ascribed to David, who Avas regarded as the
first great poetical and musical genius of the race.
Probably the name of David was attached to the
earliest collection, in accordance with the practice
of associating anonymous productions Avith revered
names, as a means of preserving them and Avith-
out any purpose of attributing the authorship to
him. In fact, among the ancient HebreAvs little
attention was paid to the identity of authors, and
their productions were not thought of as literature
in our modern sense.
One of the purposes of the Avriter of the Book

THE PSALMS 355
of Chronicles was to represent the Levitical sys
tem of the second temple as having belonged to
the first, which it certainly did not, and to
trace its establishment back to David prior to the
existence even of the first temple. There were
certain choirs, or guilds of singers, known as
Asaphites and Korahites, and according to the
system applied to the priests and LeAdtes, to give
them an antique origin in the history of Israel,
these were traced to putative ancestors of David's
day and earlier. Certain minor collections of
psalms were made bjr or for these temple choirs
from time to time, and they came to be known as
psalms of Asaph, or of the sons of Korah, regard
less of actual authorship or origin. Other tra
ditional names were sometimes used to designate
separate pieces, but the later additions, Avhich
became more and more liturgical in their char
acter, Avere mostly left anonymous. With the
coming of a literary era and acquaintance with the
practice of other nations, the custom of connecting
ancient names Avith Avritings neAvly produced or of
unknoAvn production was dropped.
In the five parts into which the one hundred
and fifty psalms have been divided it is possible
to trace in some measure the groAvth of the col
lection. The first part contains forty-one psalms,
mostly ascribed to David, and the bulk of this was

S56 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
probably the oldest collection, made not long after
the restoration of the temple. The second part
includes chapters xiii. to lxxii. of the present Book
of Psalms, and the third, chapters lxxiii. to lxxxix.
These two really constitute one composite collec
tion. First there is a Korahite collection of eight
psalms, then a second Davidic collection of tAventy,
separated from the preceding by the psalm of
Asaph, and then an Asaphite collection extending
to chapter lxxxiii. There are occasional excep
tions to the ascriptions in these three sets of
psalms to Korah, David, and Asaph ; but a curious
feature of the series from xiii. to lxxxii., constitut
ing the second and the greater portion of the third
part, is that it was made up by an editor Avho
eliminated the name Jehovah and substituted Elo
him throughout. Those Avhich follow, to the end
of part third of the whole book, were not subjected
to that process, but they constitute a sort of mis
cellaneous appendix to the same collection.
There is no way of fixing the time when the
several sets, or the collection into which they were
combined, or the additions appended to that col
lection, were made, but it was doubtless late in
the Persian or early in the Greek period. It was
certainly long after the time of Ezra and Nehe
miah. What are called books four and five of the
Psalms, xc.-cvi. and cvii.-cl., respectively, are not

THE PSALMS 357
clearly distinguishable from each other, and for
the most part comprise a mass of later additions,
many of which are hymns of praise, or prayers,
having an evident liturgical purpose. No part of
the collection can be regarded as homogeneous, as
pieces old or neAv, not preA'iously included, Avere
liable to be incorporated at any time or in any
place, and any piece Avas liable to undergo change,
until the final touch of the canon fixed the mass
and made it sacred from further manipulation.
The rubrics placed at the head of many psalms,
whether so placed when they were first included in
the collections or later, are no actual indication of
authorship or of the occasions that produced them,
being based rather upon surmise or assumption
than upon tradition, and they are often contra
dicted by internal evidence. There is no certainty
that any of the psalms were Avritten by David, but
it is not unlikely. The eighteenth is directly as
cribed to him in Second Samuel xxii., but even
that is not conclusive evidence. There are a feAV
pieces of the nature of historical poetry, like psalm
lxxviii., which evidently followed the promulgation
of the law and recalled the past experience of the
people down to and including the destruction of
the Northern Kingdom, and like cv. and cvi.,
AA'hich have a similar character, but are turned
into songs of praise by the opening and closing

3.58 nill JEWISH SCRIPTURES
lines. There are few indications of origin in the
Northern Kingdom, but xiv. appears to be a nup
tial sons; of Ahab and Jezebel.
Many pieces in Avhich the first person singular
is used have a national rather than a personal
significance. There is a note of depression and
appeal when Israel is compassed about by enemies,
and of triumph and rejoicing when she is victo
rious. Imprecations upon enemies are generally
directed against the enemies of the people rather
than of the individual. Some historical allusions
are uncertain. Psalm lxxix., for instance, has
been referred to an Egyptian profanation as early
as Necho's invasion, and to the time of Antiochus
Epiphanes, four centuries and a half later, but it
more probably refers to the taking of Jerusalem
by Nebuchadnezzar. Many plaintive songs Avere
doubtless Avritten during the captivity, but few
bear such a stamp of certainty as cxxxvii. Com
plainings in behalf of the meek and faithful who
are oppressed by the wicked or insulted by the
scornful, Avith expressions of abiding faith, as in
xxxvii., lxxiii, and xciv., may have arisen in dark
times, like those of Manasseh's long reign, when
evil influences Avere dominant. "NeAv" songs of
rejoicing, like xcv. and those which follow it, may
be assigned to the return from captivity, and some
of them haAre the exulting tone of the " second

THE PSALMS 859
Isaiah," to Avhom they have sometimes been at
tributed. There are representations of Jehovah's terrible
might which remind one of the Song of Deborah
and the loud timbrel of the Book of Jasher, and
others Avhich recall the imagery of Job, while
again there are appeals to the lovingkindness
and tender mercies of a God of gentler attributes.
Occasionally we find recognition of the laws and
statutes, and references to sacrifices and burnt-
offerings, but more often the doctrine that right
conduct has its sure reward and wrong-doing its
certain penalty, which pervades the teachings of
the prophets.
It does not greatly matter that Ave cannot refer
the parts of this Avonderful collection to their
sources, assign dates and authors to the several
pieces, or associate them closely Avith incidents
and events. Notwithstanding the lack of order,
arrangement, or classification, we can see that it
reflects the experience, the moods, the hopes and
fears, the calamities and triumphs, and the modes
of worship of that ancient people who attained the
highest conception of Deity, and were the first to
put their trust in an unseen power that pervaded
the universe with the rule of righteousness. The
marvel is that out of their experience of nearly a
thousand years, ended two thousand years ago,

360 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
should come a mass of devotional poetry so far
fitted to the needs of the human heart in all times
and places, that the Avorld cannot outgrow it or
improve upon it. It is not the product of a single
genius, like many another indestructible heritage
from the past, but of the genius of a race passing
through an ordeal such as no other race has under
gone. Through that ordeal results were wrought
for mankind that could not perish, and one of their
abiding evidences is the Book of Psalms.

XX
THE PEOVEEBS
The author of the Book of Kings says of Solo
mon, " and he spake three thousand proverbs, and
his songs were a thousand and five." What be
came of these productions doth not appear, but this
Oriental statement, together Avith Solomon's gen
eral reputation for wisdom, caused his name to be
attached to the accumulation of aphorisms and
wise sayings of the ancient Hebrews which was
preserved in their scriptures. No doubt this col
lection, like most others in that great volume, Avas
made in the years after the return from captivity,
when the national Ufe was extinct ; but of this
there is no external or internal evidence beyond
the fact that no sign can be found of the exist
ence of the the Proverbs as a collection until
it became a question of including them in the
canon. The thirty-one chapters contain several collec
tions, varying somewhat in characteristics, united
together in the customary manner of the compilers
of scripture books. At the beginning are six or

362 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
seven verses of introduction, probably prefixed by
the latest editor, and including the designation
"the proverbs of Solomon the son of David,
king of Israel," which Avas doubtless adopted on
the familiar principle of associating cherished pro
ductions with some great name. What foUoAVS, to
the end of chapter ix., does not consist of prov
erbs, but of a series of connected discourses upon
Avisdom, of exhortations to observe her teachings,
and of Avarnings against folly and imprudence.
These are addressed to a young man, designated
as "my son," by some imaginary sage, and the
youth is especially warned against the wiles of the
" strange Avoman."
From chapter x. to xxii. 16 is a veritable col
lection of maxims and Avise sayings, with the
heading " the proverbs of Solomon." They con
sist of a long series of distichs, quite disconnected
and susceptible of any other arrangement, balanced
after the manner of the parallelism of Hebrew
verse. In some cases they are a strict parallel of
the same or similar meaning differently expressed,
but more frequently antitheses. They are a hetero
geneous collection, and the division into chapters
is quite arbitrary. From xxii. 17 to xxiv. 22
there is another series of continuous injunctions
upon Avisdom and the conduct of life. The rest
of chapter xxiv. is a separate collection of " say-

THE PROVERBS 363
ings of the wise," but not in the form of detached
proverbs. The next five chapters form a collection which
is designated as " also " proverbs of Solomon,
" which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah
copied out." These are a mixture of genuine
maxims and aphorisms, Avith bits of advice and
Avise counsel, the Avhole having a decidedly antique
flavor. This is undoubtedly the oldest part of the
Avhole book. Whence the men of Hezekiah copied
it out does not appear, but they may very likely
have transcribed it as a collection from various
sources. They did so about two centuries and a
half after Solomon's day, and Avhile some of his
Avise sayings may have been preserved until that
time, it would probably have been difficult to prove
their authenticity even then. There can be no
doubt that the collection was a gathering up of
floating material in the distinctly literary period
of Hezekiah's reign.
The collection that begins with chapter x. is un
questionably much later, and Avas probably com
pleted, at a very late day, of material that had
drifted together in the course of centuries. Whether
the preliminary and interpolated discourses are
earlier or later than the main collection is uncer
tain and not important. They have the appearance
of being incorporated from separate productions,

364 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
on account of their general character, when the
whole book was finally made up. The last two
chapters, the " words of Agur " and the " words of
king Lemuel," were probably added at the same
time. The names are enigmatical, and there is
no reason to suppose that they represent real
persons. There is a quaint shrewdness in the words of
Agur and a picturesqueness of expression that
suggest a primitive time. The gem of chapter
xxxi. is the exquisite alphabetical poem on the
virtuous woman, which is too much a work of
literary art to be very early or very late in the
history of Israel. The original epithet signifies
rather " sensible " or " capable " than " virtuous "
in the usual modern acceptation.
A noticeable characteristic of the whole Book
of Proverbs is the absence of the distinctively
Hebrew or Israelite stamp. There is no intrinsic
quality denoting the time or place of production.
There is in it a universaUty of tone that seems in
consistent with the persistent particularism of the
JeAvish race. There are none of the famihar al
lusions to Israel or to Sion, to the patriarchs or
prophets, to the priests or law-givers, to the temple
or the altar fires. There is simply a mass of
worldly wisdom and prudent counsel, of aphor
isms, maxims, proverbs, and sayings of the Avise,

THE PROVERBS 365
marked in general by a Avide and lofty ethical
spirit, but devoid of special rehgious significance.
In its way it is a production of Semitic genius
as unique as the Psalms, and stiU unrivalled of
its kind.

XXI
THE SONG OF SONGS
The mere fact that the editor or scribe who put
upon this beautiful composition the title Song
of Songs added " which is Solomon's," would
seem to indicate that such a label was not meant
to imply authorship, so plainly do the contents
contradict such an implication. Not only could
it never have been written by Solomon, but it ex
hibits that monarch in the unpleasant light of be
ing discomfited by a simple country maiden, Avhose
charms he attempted to add to the attractions of
his harem, but Avho persisted in her ardent fidelity
to the rustic lover left in her native village, in
spite of the allurements of the seraglio at Jeru
salem. It is a gem of pastoral poetry from the
north country of Israel, rescued from oblivion by
the baseless allegorical interpretation put upon it at
an early day and persisted in for centuries. It is a
pity that more such treasures, if such there were,
had not been saved by similar misconceptions.
And this gem is a veritable antique, for it ante
dates the ivory palaces of Samaria and the reign

THE SONG OF SONGS 367
of Omri, and was written when Tirzah could be
named Avith Jerusalem as a beautiful capital, in
the daj's that folloAved the reign of Jeroboam,
founder of the Northern Kingdom. It Avas also
a time when Solomon's quest of fair maidens for
his harem was fresh in memory, and in a memory
with which no reverence mingled. Perhaps in
the writer's mind there was a keen recollection of
that other fair Shulamite, Abishag, whose loveli
ness was made a sacrifice to the extinguished
fires of the royal blood before Solomon Avas king,
and became the cause of fatal jealousy between
him and his aspiring brother. At all events, this
is a production of the Northern realm, nine cen
turies older than the Christian era. It breathes
of the pastoral atmosphere of Issachar and the
vineyards of Zebulun. It wafts into the luxurious
court of Jerusalem the fragrance and bloom of the
vales of Galilee.
Much tissue of brain and material of writing
was squandered for ages upon the allegorical in
terpretations of this little chaplet of exquisite
song ; and in the past century learning, ingenuity,
and critical acumen have been lavishly expended
in extracting from it the real meaning and pur
pose, and nobody feels quite sure of the result.
It is an abuse of terms to call it erotic in any pas
sage. It is amatory, but it depicts the triumph

368 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of a pure and innocent love and the baffling of a
sensual passion in which appears no craft or
malice, only the easy-going oriental indulgence.
In substance, if not in form, it is dramatic, Aveav-
ing together a number of episodes in an artless
fashion. It has been conjectured that it Avas used
for histrionic representation, perhaps at nuptial
celebrations, continuously or in separate episodes.
It has also been guessed that it was intended as a
monologue in which one skilful singer would suf
ficiently imply by tone or gesture and action the
changes of character and scene. But whether a
dramatic performance, with accessories of scenery
and costume, a choral representation, with part
songs and solos, or a musical monologue, much
was left to the imagination in the transitions of
scene and character, and after the lapse of three
thousand years it is no easy matter, Avithout note
or explanation or tradition as a clew, to feel certain
that any "revival" of the production conforms to
the real original.
Instead of discussing any of the analyses or
explanations upon Avhich so much learning and
ingenuity has been bestowed, we may as well ac
cept that which seems most reasonable, as well as
most pleasing, as at least making the composition
intelligible. We are to imagine, then, that a
fatherless girl of Shulam, with unkind brothers

THE SONG OF SONGS 369
and a devoted lover, has been secured in her na
tive village by Solomon and brought to his se
raglio in Jerusalem. The scene opens in the
harem, and the first four verses are chanted by
odalisques in praise of the king, when the sun
burnt beauty of the North appears and speaks the
next two in explanation of the contrast of her
complexion with that of the fair daughters of
Jerusalem. Then she falls into a musing apos
trophe to her absent lover in verse 7, and the
chorus of odalisques responds in scornful advice
to return to the flocks of her shepherd lover.
Then Solomon speaks in praise of the dark maid
en's beauty in verses 9-11. She continues her
musing, as if alone, in the next three verses, the
king utters more words of admiration in 15, which
she in her re very turns upon the lover of whom she
is thinking, and after the king's reference to the
richness of her surroundings, she sings a snatch
of song calling herself the Eose of Sharon, Avhich
serves as a signal for the lover's appearance on
the scene, and the lines of chapter ii., verse 2,
are put in his mouth. They are followed by the
rapturous Avords of the maiden, Avho faints in his
arms, and he adjures the daughters of Jerusalem
not to awake his love " until it please."
There, at ii. 8, is a break. The maiden speaks,
as alone and in a trance or revery, recalling her
24

370 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
lover on their native hills and the scenes and in
cidents of former joy. This continues to the end
of chapter ii., and is followed in the first four
verses of chapter iii. Avith the relation of a dream,
or a fancy, of hunting for the lover, from whom
she had been separated, to bring him to her
mother's house again. He appears to be present,
and again adjures the daughters of Jerusalem not
to arouse his love from the trance in Avhich such
sweet words are uttered.
At chapter iii. 6 a neAv episode begins, carry
ing the mind back to the time when Solomon
brought his neAv acquisition to the city. The de
scription of his coming and of his palanquin, and
the call to the daughters of Sion to behold him, are
supposed to proceed from a male chorus in a
street of Jerusalem ; but the beginning of chapter
iv. takes us into the harem again, and in the first
six verses the king appears sounding the praises
of the maiden's beauty. Upon the resumption
of this unavailing panegyric, on the same or an
other occasion, the voice of the rustic lover breaks
in with a call to his bride to look upon him from
her gorgeous height ; and being ravished with a
look, he utters his own ardent praises of her, until
she throw's herself into his arms with the Avords
of the last half of verse 16, to Avhich he responds
joyfully in verse 1 of chapter v.

THE SONG OF SONGS 371
At verse 2 begins another episode. The maid
of Shulam is again separated from her lover, and
in musing mood relates a distracted dream or fancy
of his seeking her in her apartment at night and
disappearing Avhen the door was opened, and of
her going forth to find him. To her appeal to the
daughters of Jerusalem in Arerse 8 the chorus re
sponds with verse 9, and she replies Avith the
praises that complete the chapter. After the
question of the chorus, vi. 1, the lovers are sup
posed to come together again, and the maid ex
presses satisfaction in 2 and 3.
At chapter vi. 4 another episode opens, aiad
Solomon once more tries his blandishments upon
the unyielding beauty, whose resistance makes her
" terrible as an army with banners." At verse 8
the voice of the lover is supposed to break in again
upon the king's seductive praises, and then the
chorus, verse 10, asks scornfully Avho this superior
beauty is, that she should be so proud. The maid
turns her back and musingly recalls the incident
of her being captured in her country home, and
the chorus calls upon her to turn back that they
may look upon her. This is the first two lines of
verse 13, of which the last two are supposed to be
uttered in scornful jealousy by a dancing girl, who
proceeds to execute a dance, perhaps that of
Mahanaim. This, done in the oriental manner,

372 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
and in the diaphanous costume proper to the
character, excites the admiration of the king and
calls forth the eulogium of vii. 1-9, which is ap
plied to the dancing girl, and not to the modest
maid of Shulam.
The latter turns from the scene more than ever
enamoured of her OAvn lover, and appeals to him
to take her back through the fields and villages to
their rural home, Avhere they will enjoy the de
lights of their mutual passion. This ardent out
burst ends with a faint in the lover's arms, and
once more he adjures the daughters of Jerusalem
not to awaken his love. After viii. 4 there is a
transition of the scene to the native haunts of the
youthful pair, and their return is greeted with a
chorus of villagers in the first tAvo lines of verse 5,
the rest of that verse forming an ejaculation of the
lover over the maiden aAvakening under an apple
tree in her mother's garden, Avhere he has laid
her to repose. She responds Avith her Avonted ar
dor in verse 6, and the following verse seems to
be the reflection of a sage bystander upon the
strength of true love, which cannot be bought.
The rest of the chapter, verses 8-14, appears to
form an epilogue, the significance of which has not
been made entirely clear. Some would throw
it back into a retrospect, before the abduction of
the maiden, and others make it a sequel to her ex-

THE SONG OF SONGS 373
perience. The only difficulty with the latter in
terpretation is a seeming inconsistency between
the description of verse 8 and that of verse 10,
and the assumption that the girl's brothers are
ignorant of her eventful absence from home.
However, it is in harmony with the plan set forth
above, and as satisfactory as any that has been
suggested. Verse 8 is supposed to be spoken by
one of the brothers of the maid, and to be replied
to by the other brother in verse 9, the question
and ansAver implying a treatment according to the
character of the girl for virtue. In the next three
verses she proudly protests for herself that she has
already proved to be a wall, with impregnable
towers, and that Solomon, with all his purchased
and guarded vineyards, could not invade her do
main. Then comes the call of the lover for the
wedding, for which the companions are waiting,
and the happy reply of the willing bride.
AU this may seem like mere ingenious conject
ure, but it is the result of the closest study, Avith
all the light that research into customs and lan
guage can throAV upon it, and it has the merit of a
real solution of the most charming of puzzles. It
had to create a point of view, in a time and place
most remote from that of the modern literary
critic, and about which little definite knowledge is
attainable. It had to deal with obscurities in a

374 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
language deficient in grammatical distinctions, es
pecially in the tenses of verbs, and with peculiari
ties of dialect of which feAV examples have been
preserA'ed. Moreover, the original texts had suf
fered the usual mutilations from copying and from
misconceptions of meaning, while the aUegorical
interpretations so long insisted upon have im
posed upon the translators of most modern ver
sions. But in spite of all draAvbacks we get a
vivid and exquisite picture of life and character in
Israel and Judah, in the far-off time, before trouble
accumulated upon the two kingdoms, and a picture
in delightful contrast with the dark shades in the
old annals of the kings.

XXII
JONAH
Doubtless the Book of Jonah had a serious
purpose, but, were it not for the tremendous seri
ousness Avith Avhich it has been taken these many
centuries, because the ancient authorities of the
JeAvish faith included it among their sacred writ
ings, one Avould be almost inclined to treat it as a
burlesque upon the prophet of Israel. In a cer
tain serious sense it is so. It was Avritten, prob
ably in Babylon, late in the period of captivity,
Avhen a kind of scepticism prevailed on account of
the non-fulfilment of predictions, and the prophet
was in danger of being held in light esteem and
of cherishing a grudge against Jelxrvah for the
failure of his menaces. Jonah, son of Amittai, Avas
one of the old prophets, and a type of those Avhose
mission it was to utter direful threats, and Nine
veh was the greatest of ancient cities and a type
of obstinate pride and poAver.
For the purpose of striking illustration this
stern old prophet is represented as being sent to
prophesy destruction to that mighty metropolis ;

376 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
and the futility of his trying to escape so daring a
task, when commanded by the Lord, is shoAvn in
his experience at sea. The device of swalloAving
by a dragon or sea-monster, as a means of saving
the Ufe of one destined to accomplish a certain
mission, Avas familiar in Babylonian fable. Jonah,
being finally brought to face his task in spite of
himself, boldly proclaims in the streets of Nin
eveh that it Avill be overthroAvn in forty days.
Still for the purpose of iUustration, and in spite of
au improbability bordering upon the grotesque,
the proud capital is portrayed as suddenly repent
ing and going into a general mourning for its sins,
at the clamor of an incomprehensible foreign va
grant in the streets, and its fate is thereupon
averted, to the discomfiture of the reluctant proph
et. Thus is enforced, in an extreme case, the
doctrine that repentance may follow the divine
menace of punishment, and the punishment may
thereby be averted ; and that the prophet aaIio
has been the instrument of the conversion has no
right to complain.
The latter lesson was impressed upon Jonah in
an unpleasant experience, and his complaint at
the destruction of the ephemeral gourd was made
the occasion of a rebuke for his disgruntlement at
the salvation of the great city of Nineveh. The
extreme Avay in Avhich the incidents of the tale are

JONAH 377
put gives it an appearance of broad caricature ;
but in spite of the solemn exegesis of many cen
turies its meaning and purpose are plain enough.
The only absolutely inscrutable thing about it is
the intellectual effort and moral earnestness that
have been expended upon the theory that it is, or
Avas ever intended to be, a solemn narration of
facts, any more than the story of Giant Grim, or
the encounter of Greatheart Avith Apollyon. The
real Jonah has just cause of complaint against the
liberty taken by the author with his name and
reputation. It needs only to be added that the
prayer "out of the fish's belly," which is inter
posed betAveen the account of Jonah's first expe
rience and the sequel, is quite irrelevant to either,
though apparently employed to " turn " the place
of his confinement, and is wholly made up of
scraps and shreds from the psalms, strung to
gether without coherency.

XXIII
THE BOOK OF DANIEL
As we departed from the biblical arrangement
and adopted the chronological order in dealing
with the prophetic books, on account of their
relation to historical events, so Ave can get a
clearer understanding by placing at the end of our
series the two books which were the latest to ap
pear, and one at least of which has an important
bearing upon events at a critical time. The voice
of prophecy had been silent for three centuries
and a half, and for the greater portion of that
period no scribe had ventured to add to the sacred
writings of Judaism, saAre perhaps in the process
of copying, when the terrible pressure of the per
secution of Antiochus Epiphanes, the abominable
profanation of the holy city with a pagan image
in the very temple of the Lord, and the desperate
revolt headed by Judas Maccabseus, forced into
existence the remarkable production known as
the Book of Daniel. Discarding prepossessions
and prejudices, and seeking merely to see things
as they are, we shall have no great difficulty in
understanding this book.

THE BOOK OF DANIEL 379
FolloAving a practice by no means novel, the
author shrouded his own identity in mystery, and
made use for his purposes of one of the most
venerated names of his race. The real Daniel is
referred to by Ezekiel as one of the sages, already
ancient, revered in his day, and he probably lived
and wrote his lost productions in the time of
Manasseh. At all events tradition held him among
the wisest of men and the most faithful in time of
trial and adversity in his devotion to the God of
Israel. He Avas in the popular mind the ideal
character for the purposes of the anonymous
writer, who strove in the days of sorest distress
to revive and strengthen the ancient faith, re
kindle hope, and nerve the people to the struggle
for recovering possession of Sion, now sunk in the
abomination that maketh desolate.
This Avriter began by placing himself back in
the time of Judah's first great humiliation, the
Babylonian captivity, and using the subsequent
events in a kind of prophetic forecast to lead up
to his climax. In so doing he showed a remark
able ignorance of actual history, but the means
of information among the JeAvs of his time was
scanty, and all that was familiar was a few con
spicuous names and leading events. Besides, his
purpose was not historical, and he was as careless
of facts as he was ignorant of details.

380 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
The first half of the book consists of a series of
narratives, for the main features of Avhich material
may or may not have existed outside of the
writer's imagination, in the shape of popular tales
or tradition. There is in them an appearance of
differences of source. There is a difference of
language in the earliest knoAvn texts, but those
were produced by copying, after the Aramaic Tar
gums came into existence, and signify little, as there
is an obvious unity of purpose running through
the whole book. By Avay of illustrating the divine
care for the faithful among the chosen people, and
the exhibition of divine poAver to the dismay of
the mightiest potentates, we are told the series of
stories of the faithful Daniel and his devoted com
panions in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.
The first indication of the author's definite pur
pose appears in the great image of that monarch's
dream, interpreted by Daniel. Here Ave have the
gradual degeneration of imperial power from the
Babylonian, through the Persian, the Grecian of
Alexander, to the Seleucidte, and to Antiochus as
their basest and most degraded representative.
This degenerate sovereignty is to be crushed with
the little stone of the Jewish revolt, Avhich avUI
groAV into the great mountain of the Lord's do
minion in the earth. Here is still an echo of the
bold promise of ancient prophecy.

THE BOOK OF DANIEL 881
The divine care for the faithful, and the dis
comfiture of their oppressors, is especially enforced
in the story of Nebuchadnezzar's golden image,
and the penalty of burning alive for violation of
the imperial decree to fall doAvn and Avorship it.
The next iUustrative episode is put in the form of
a record by Nebuchadnezzar himself, giving an
account of his own humiliation to the form and
condition of a beast of the field, and his sub
sequent recognition of the "King of Heaven."
The reader of this volume will not need to be
told that this was pure invention, and to discuss
its " historical basis " is to talk nonsense.
If there Avas a name in the royal family of
Babylon corresponding to Belshazzar, its pos
sessor certainly was not the son or the successor
of Nebuchadnezzar, nor did he die suddenly, that
the kingdom might be "received" by Darius the
Mede. But that does not detract from the inter
est or significance of the story of his feast, Avhich
contains a pointed reference to the desecration of
the precious vessels of the temple by Antiochus,
and vindicates once more the Avisdom and triumph
of the faithful Israelite and the righteous ven
geance of his God. Once more that moral is en
forced in the story of Daniel and the lions, and
the conversion of Darius to a behef in the living
God, albeit the Avriter was ignorant of the fact that

382 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Darius was no more a Mede than Cyrus, and Cyrus
no more a Persian than Darius, and mixed up the
order of his potentates.
Beginning with chapter vii. the book grows im
pressive Avith the visions of Daniel and the in
tensity of the Avriter's purpose, for here we have
the first great example of that apocalyptic writing
Avhich largely Avrought the transition from Judaism
to Christianity. Daniel, Avho has before always
been spoken of in the third person, is noAv repre
sented as having Avritten his dream and told " the
sum of the matters." In the first vision, in the
reign of the mythical " Belshazzar king of Baby
lon," Ave have again the succession of empires
—Assyrian (or Babylonian), Persian, Grecian, and
the Seleucidaa — in a series of beasts. Among the
principalities into which the Greek power was
divided appears the " little horn," which figures
Antiochus Epiphanes, the presumptuous and de
spised oppressor of the JeAVs, and for him the
judgment Avas prepared Avhich was to result in
the dominion of the faithful, personified as the
" Son of Man," deriving authority from the " An
cient of Days." This much-discussed symbolism
is made obscure only by the discussion.
Again, in a vision in Avhichthe Persian palace at
Susa is given to Belshazzar king of Babylon, the
Medo-Persian empire appears in the ram, and

THE BOOK OF DANIEL 883
Alexander in the he-goat, and Ave have a new
development of the "little horn," which had pre
sumed to trample upon the stars and to extinguish
the altar-fires of the temple. But it is speedily to
be broken and the sanctuary cleansed. The his
torical dislocation Avhich makes Darius the son of
Xerxes, instead of his father, is of little conse
quence, and the enigmatical calculation of the time
of deliverance is remarkable chiefly for the various
extraordinary uses to Avhich it has been put by those
who did not understand it. No doubt it was made
purposely vague and obscure, as dealing Avith what
was still in the future, but the writer intended to
convey the impression of a speedy triumph, and
to sustain it by mystical figures out of past
prophecy, Avhich had no real relevancy.
Most pregnant vision of aU is that of the last
three chapters, with its " man clothed in linen,"
above the great river, reveaUng in words like the
voice of a multitude the coming deliverance of the
people. Beginning with the Persian kings, of
whom the author knew but four, he sketches, as
if in a vision of the future and in vague and
Avavering outlines, without distinct detail, the
course of history to Antiochus Epiphanes, the
" contemptible person," who is pictured in his
desperate conflicts Avith his enemies, in his prof
anation of the sanctuary and his favors to those

384 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
Avho forsake the covenant, his persecution of the
righteous and setting up of the abomination that
maketh desolate, and his honoring of the strange
God of the Eomans. But his fate draweth nigh ;
" he shall come to his end and none shall help him."
" The people that know their God shall be strong
and do exploits," and their great prince shall stand
up at that time of trouble, " such as never Avas."
Here is foreshadowed the yet unachieved vic
tory of Judas Maccabaeus and his resolute follow
ers. But what of those victims of persecution avIio
have died martyrs to their unyielding faith, in de
spite of the doctrine that the righteous have their
reward ? That persistent refusal of the ancient
HebreAv, in his most exalted mood, to look beyond
this life must give way at this terrible crisis, in
order to find the encouragement of hope when it
was most needed. That the departed faithful
might share the triumph and the recreant might
suffer the penalty of traitors, " many of those that
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
of them to everlasting life and some to shame and
everlasting contempt."
In a brief but impressive epilogue after this
climax there is a venturesome prediction, in am
biguous terms, of the time of " the end of these
wonders," and Avithin the set time of 1290 clays
Judas and his devout warriors had rescued the

THE BOOK OF DANIEL 385
temple, driven the Syrian minions out of Jerusa
lem, restored the Avorship of Israel's God, and
prepared the way for the autonomy of " the glo
rious land." But the dream of power for a restored
nation was not fulfiUed in the end ; neither did
the martyrs rise to share in the victory of the
living, but the seeds of the doctrine of the resur
rection of the body were planted, the germs of a
transformed Messianism were started, and the
soil was prepared as never before for the teach
ings that were to come, after yet another heathen
powrer had spread itself over the land of so many
disappointed hopes, and of the unextinguishable
potency of neAv hopes.

25

XXIV
ECCLESIASTES
Along in the latter half of the first century of
the Christian era the rabbis of the Jewish faith
were applying their scriptural canon to a phil
osophical production among the writings in their
possession, the worldly and sceptical tone of
which caused much doubt and hesitation in their
minds. But its recognition of righteousness as
the highest wisdom, and its acknowledgment of
the Avays of God as beyond question, as Avell as
past finding out, finally prevailed, and it was
added to their collection of sacred books. In the
next century (130 a.d.) it was included in the
Greek translation of Aquila, and was thereafter
accepted by Christians and JeAvs alike. No ref
erence or indirect allusion to this Avork before the
Christian era has been discovered, and its age has
always been a matter of speculation. Its original
language and general character afford the only
evidence, and these indicate a late origin. It was
almost certainly written after the troublous time
of the Maccabees, and probably late in the As-

ECCLESIASTES 387
monean period, perhaps not long before the Eo
man conquest of Asia Minor.
It was in the form of a discourse in the mouth
of a personage designated by the four Hebrew con
sonants corresponding to K-H-L-TH. Vowels
were supplied to make of this " Koheleth." There
was no such Avord in use, but as the first three
consonants corresponded with those of a verb
meaning to assemble, or to gather a company of
listeners, it Avas assumed, though feminine in form,
to signify one Avho addresses such a company.
Hence the title Ecclesiastes, given to it in the
Greek version and adopted in the English, with the
alternative equivalent, " or, The Preacher."
The burden of the discourse is the vanity and
emptiness of all things human, and as it begins
Avith those things most highly esteemed by man,
knowledge and wisdom, power and riches, luxury
and unlimited means of enjoyment, it represents
Koheleth at the outset as being the son of David,
king in Jerusalem. The writer did not choose to
assume for himself an experience to justify the con
clusion of " vanity and striving after Avind " as the
result of the highest advantages of earth, and there
was no better example of that sort of experience
than Solomon ; and taking such liberties with
great names was the commonest thing in Hebrew
literature, as we have already seen. After this

3*3 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
part of the cUscourse the Avriter seems to lose
sight of his assumed character, and to speak in
his own person, as a man of wide observation,
keen insight, and a philosophic temper.
Such a Avriter must have been the product of his
time, and it Avas evidently a time Avhen the long
struggle of his race was over. The hope of a
great nationality was gone, the strivings of the
petty principality had subsided. The fever that
produced the first apocalyptic writings and fostered
the hopes of the mysterious " anointed one," who
had been so long receding in the vague visions
of the seers, had apparently burned out. The
awakening faith in a hereafter had relapsed into
slumber. Koheleth cherished no hopes and saw
uo prospects. The thing that had been Avas the
thing that Avas and that Avould be, and trying to
reform it was striving after Avind. There is no
memory of Israel's past in his mind ; he has lost
thought of the laAv and the prophets, and if he has
ever heard of that neAv doctrine of the resurrec
tion of the sanctified and a coming kingdom, he
holds it as a vanity too light even to recognize.
Koheleth is a fatalist, a pessimist, and yet he is
cheerful and resigned, and his advice is to make
the best of things as they are, avoiding all extremes,
cherishing prudence, and scorning folly. There is
no assurance of good fortune in righteousness, and

ECCLESIASTES 389
yet righteousness is to be preferred. There is no
sure penalty for wickedness, yet wickedness is
folly. Though there is one event to the righteous
and the wicked, and the dead knoAV not anything,
neither have they any more a reAvard, yet is there
no question that the righteous and the wise, Avith
their works, are "in the hand of God," and that
is the safest place. The problem of Job troubled
not the mind of Koheleth. Sadly and cheerfully
by turns, he simply gave it up, and saw nothing
better for man under the sun than to eat, drink,
and enjoy the labor of his hands, ceasing aU effort
at the solution of insoluble problems and all striv
ing after wind.
In his discourse he sprinkles wise sayings and
prudent counsels, in a manner to suggest quota
tion from a common stock, and sometimes a broken
and obscure style indicates the same thing. There
are inconsistencies that may come from quoted
expressions, or may be the result of variable
moods. The writer used an inflexible language
little adapted to philosophic meditations, and in
the hands of those who did not understand him
his writing became corrupted by transcription and
translation. But in spite of obscurities its gen
eral meaning, and its tone and spirit, are clear as
dayUght, and all the murkiness with which they
have been overspread has emanated from the spirit

390 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES
of superstition, Avhich evermore invades any re
pository of thought or sentiment that has been
declared sacred.
In all his musings upon life, his recognition of
the evil and incurable state of things under the
sun, and of the wisdom of a calm and rational en
joyment of the good things of the only world
vouchsafed to man, the thoughts of Koheleth
revert ever and anon to the one event that comes
to all. While he bids the young man to rejoice
in his youth, he admonishes him that that also is
the time to remember his Creator, and sets before
him a sad picture of old age, unsurpassed in poetic
expression in the whole range of literature. And
yet upon that last scene of all he can only pro
nounce again the cheerless refrain, " vanity of vani
ties, all is vanity."
With that ends the discourse of Koheleth, and the
long and varied range of the scriptures of that an
cient race whose genius gave the Avorld the foun
dation of its enduring religions. There are added
words, perhaps by the author, reverting to the char
acter with which he set out, but the last four verses
of the book were undoubtedly appended by others,
when it was added to the canonical collection.
Perhaps the rubric beginning " this is the end of the
matter ; all has been heard," was intended to close
and seal forever the volume of the Jewish scriptures.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08844 8221

ill!

wnrmtfmmtfrttmttm

 <(»..iii.i(.<  i  Hi  •