Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go.”
Parallel Translations
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Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go.”
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Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
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Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.'
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Joshua 1:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 28:15 Behold, I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have spoken of to you.”
- Jeremiah 1:7-8 But Yahweh said to me, “Don’t say, ‘I am a child;’ for you must go to whomever I send you, and you must say whatever I command you. Don’t be afraid because of them, for I am with you to rescue you,” says Yahweh.
- Psalms 27:1-2 Yahweh is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Yahweh is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers came at me to eat up my flesh, even my adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell.
- Joshua 1:6-7 “Be strong and courageous; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Don’t turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.
- Deuteronomy 20:1 When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses, chariots, and a people more numerous than you, you shall not be afraid of them; for Yahweh your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
- Psalms 46:7 Yahweh of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.
- Deuteronomy 31:7-8 Moses called to Joshua, and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land which Yahweh has sworn to their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to inherit it. Yahweh himself is who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be discouraged.”
- Isaiah 43:1 But now Yahweh who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel, says: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine.
- Isaiah 43:5 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west.
- Judges 6:14 Yahweh looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?”
- 2 Samuel 13:28 Absalom commanded his servants, saying, “Mark now, when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine; and when I tell you, ‘Strike Amnon,’ then kill him. Don’t be afraid. Haven’t I commanded you? Be courageous, and be valiant!”
- Acts 4:19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge for yourselves,
- Deuteronomy 31:28 Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 9. Have not I commanded, etc Although in Hebrew…
9. Have not I commanded, etc Although in Hebrew a simple affirmation is often made in the form of a question, and this phraseology is of very frequent occurrence, here, however, the question is emphatic, to give an attestation to what had previously been taught, while the Lord, by bringing his own authority distinctly forward, relieves his servant from care and hesitancy. He asks, Is it not I who have commanded thee? I too will be present with thee. Observe the emphasis: inasmuch as it is not lawful to resist his command. This passage also teaches that nothing is more effectual to produce confidence than when trusting to the call and the command of God, and feeling fully assured of it in our own conscience, we follow whithersoever he is pleased to lead.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jos 1:9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong…
Jos 1:9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God [is] with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Ver. 9. Be strong and of a good courage.] Joshua was not faint hearted, but lowly minded: and hence he is so often cheered up and encouraged to the work. See on Jos 1:6.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Have not I commanded thee; I whom thou art…
Have not I commanded thee; I whom thou art obliged to obey; I who can carry thee through every thing I put thee upon; I of whose faithfulness and almightiness thou hast had large experience?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Have not I commanded thee?.... The above things, to…
Have not I commanded thee?.... The above things, to go over Jordan with the people into the land of Canaan, and to observe the law of Moses in all things, and to be of good courage, which is again repeated; consider who it is that has given these orders and instructions, the great Jehovah, the everlasting I AM, who is faithful to his promises, and able to perform. The consideration of which would serve to animate him to the work he was called unto, to encourage his faith in God, to engage in his service cheerfully and readily:
be strong, and of a good courage; See Gill on Jos 1:6; See Gill on Jos 1:7.
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be not afraid, nor be thou dismayed; at his enemies, numerous and powerful, nor discouraged at anything in himself, any unfitness for such service, as he might think, or at any difficulties he might fear from the people he had the government of, and was to lead on; it was enough that the divine Presence was promised him, and which is repeated:
for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest: or, as the Targum of Jonathan,"for thy help is the Word of the Lord thy God;''See Gill on Jos 1:5.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain I commanded thee - I whom thou art obliged…
I commanded thee - I whom thou art obliged to obey: I who can carry thee through every thing I put thee upon: I of whose faithfulness and almighty power thou hast had large experience?
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain Have not I commanded thee? — Such an emphatic…
[9.
Have not I commanded thee? — Such an emphatic interrogation is often the strongest possible form of affirmation.
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Thy God is with thee — As the soldier’s valour is stimulated by the eye of his captain, so a vivid realization of the immediate presence of God is the best safeguard against unmanly terror.]
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. Have not I commanded thee?] Observe the repetition…
9. Have not I commanded thee?] Observe the repetition of the words of exhortation. The Hebrew leader is reminded again and again that it was not his work but God’s work, which he had been raised up to carry out. Comp. Deu_31:7-8; Deu_31:23.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain
INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORICAL BOOKS
JOSHUA TO NEHEMIAH.
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BY THE REV A. PLUMMER, M.A.,
MASTER OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DURHAM.
IN tragic interest alone the history of the children of Israel during the period before us from Joshua to Nehemiah is unique.* Perhaps some of us in the experience of life have known what it is to see a young man of good birth and ability enter upon a noble inheritance which has long been waiting for him, and for the management and enjoyment of which wise and affectionate friends have been giving him the best training and preparation in their power. Such a sight kindles a hopeful enthusiasm, which, however, in thoughtful minds will be tempered with something of anxiety. Perhaps we have known also what it is in such a case to have our enthusiasm kept up but for a very short time, our hopes only very partially fulfilled, while our anxiety is more than justified. The fair inheritance, during a career of some brilliancy, chequered by grievous mistakes, is ruinously mishandled, and at last lost altogether; and the gifted owner, soured by disappointment and vitiated by reckless misconduct, becomes an outcast almost a beggar. Such things are not uncommon. And there are cases not frequent, but often possible, where, after weary years of struggling, the ruined outcast wins his way back to the possessions which he had (mainly by his own fault) lost. What a contrast between the first taking possession and the second! The brightness of the inheritance is gone, and still more the brightness of him who enters upon it. Heavier work, heavier responsibilities lie before him; and he has only crippled resources, in health, in energy, and in fortune, for meeting both. The task which confronted him at the beginning of life confronts him again at the end of it. But the work has waxed while he has waned; and he has all his work to do with cold and palsied hands. There is still much to hope for, much to be thankful for; but more to regret, still more to fear. The joy of returning is almost counterbalanced by the misery of contrasting the past with the present, and what is with what might have been. (Ezr_3:12, Ezr_3:13)
An instance of this kind awakens keen interest and sympathy when we witness it in the case of an individual. How much more, then, when the chief actor is not an individual, but a whole people, and that people one of the leading, one of the typical nations of the world! The remark, therefore, which was made at the outset seems to be justified; that in tragic interest alone the history of the Israelites from Joshua to Nehemiah is unique. And of course for the philosophic student, and still more for the Christian student, the dramatic element in the history of the Jews is far from being either the most interesting or the most important. Whether the religion be regarded as true or false, this much must be admitted by the philosopher; that to Judaism we owe the spirit of religion, as to Greece that of culture and philosophy, and to Rome that of order and law; and these things combined make up nearly the whole of what is really precious in civilisation. If again, as St. Ambrose says, Novum testamentum in vetere latet, vetus testamentum in novo patet; and if, as many of us know from the deepest experience, our own spiritual vicissitudes, both as a Church and as individuals, are writ large, for guidance and for warning, in the chequered history of the Chosen People; then for the Christian this history must ever have an interest, which, for profundity and extent, is absolutely without a rival.
A comparison between the two chief figures which stand, the one at the beginning, and the other at the close of our period, will be suggestive and instructive. Joshua and Nehemiah seem to be alike in this, that both were born in the land of captivity, and both were taught by serving in youth how to command in manhood. Joshua was born in Egypt, "the house of bondage," and had reached middle life before he quitted it; and we first catch sight of Nehemiah as cupbearer to Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, in the winter palace at Shushan. But how different was the condition both of their servitude and of their command! Joshua"s servitude was one of suffering and degradation, Nehemiah"s of luxury and honour. Yet, if Joshua was braced by his lot, Nehemiah would seem to have been in no wise enervated by his. And if the effortless overthrow of the walls of Jericho is in strange contrast with the painful rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, and the six years" rapid conquest of six strong nations, with the tedious watching against treacherous foes, yet the two great leaders are splendidly alike in the disinterestedness of their motives and the integrity of their conduct. Joshua, after forty years bondage in Egypt and forty years wandering in the wilderness, might have claimed, at the age of fourscore years and over, to be allowed to hand over to one of a younger generation the toils and responsibilities of an invading general, to be succeeded by the invidious labour of dividing the conquered land. But no such plea ever crosses his lips. Nehemiah gave up a post of influence and emolument at the first court in the world in order to rescue his defenceless fellow countrymen from the misery of a ceaseless menace. And in the discharge of the difficult offices which they undertook this may be said of both and it can be said of very few leaders of whom we know so much that there is not a single blot upon their character. If Nehemiah is somewhat self conscious, while Joshua seems to have all the simplicity of a child, yet in both we have the beautiful spectacle of great ability and great authority employed without any taint of selfish aims. It may well add to our pleasure in studying the period which lies before us to find that it begins and ends with so conspicuous an example of true patriotism and disinterested statesmanship.
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN
"Moses My servant is dead." Such is the Divine greeting to the already aged Joshua with which the book that bears his name opens. It was a message that must have tried even his fortitude; and it came from Him who alone could send it with assurance of perfect certainty. Moses was dead just at the very moment, it would seem, when his people and those who had helped him to lead them needed his guidance most. The ascent of Pisgah was not to be, like the ascent of Mount Sinai, followed by a return, after which their leader was even more divinely illuminated than before. They were never to see him again, nor even to know where his bones were laid. Henceforth they must be content with the guidance of "Moses" minister". (Exo_24:18 Num_27:18 Deu_1:38) It would seem as if they loyally accepted Joshua. Certainly he accepted with childlike trust and simplicity the high but heavy charge that was thus suddenly laid upon him. Neither elated nor depressed by it, he at once set to work to carry out the Divine command. The remaining thirty years of his life are a calm, unwavering response to the exhortation of Jehovah: "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest". (Jos_1:9)
It is easy for those who have laid down for themselves as an axiom, that a miracle is an impossibility, to set aside the Book of Joshua as unhistorical, because of the large amount of miraculous details contained in it. Even if the miracles of the Book of Joshua stood alone, we might fairly protest against so summary a mode of dealing with what bears all the impress, of historic reality. But the miracles which attended the conquest of Canaan stand or fall with all those which have marked God"s dealings with His Chosen People, whether under the Law or under Gospel; and to a fair mind these are simply a question of evidence. The simple truthfulness of the author of the Book of Joshua, and the worthiness of the object for which the miracles which he records are wrought, may rightly be allowed to tell for, rather than against, the truth of miracles as a whole.
It is also possible from another point of view to do but scant justice to the contents of the Book of Joshua. What (it might be asked), at this distance of time and space, have we to do with the invasion of an insignificant tract of country, less than half as large as Scotland, by one of the endless swarms of nomads that find a home in Asia? But even from this limited point of view the conquest of Palestine by the Israelites is by no means devoid of interest or significance. It fills an important place in a long series of invasions of the same tract of country, which occupy the pages of history almost from its earliest chapters down to our own day. What conquests may have preceded those of the Philistines we hardly know. It is likely enough that those whom they displaced were themselves invaders; but that old race of "giants," who seem to us like the traces of a primaeval age preserved in shadowy outline in the rocks, is too little known to us for anything to be asserted positively as to their origin. The Semitic Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites contributed with the Philistines to the destruction of these primitive populations. After them come the children of Israel; to be followed in a long train through three thousand years of history by Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Saracens, Crusaders, French, and English. And who will venture to say that the list of invaders is closed?
But it is a very narrow view to take of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua to regard it merely as one of a series of more or less similar invasions of the same territory. In its most important aspects the conquest under Joshua stands quite apart from most of the other conquests of Palestine, and in some aspects stands alone. Along with those of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans, it was the fulfilment of declarations made by the Almighty beforehand; but whereas they took place in fulfilment of a threatened punishment, it was the fulfilment of a promised blessing. And the victories of Joshua were not only the subject of prophecy, they were a prophecy themselves a type and an earnest of the blessings which Jehovah had in store for His people, and on their darker side a type and an earnest of His judgments upon those who refuse to know Him and fight against Him.
In the plan of the campaign against the Canaanites we see that it was a sagacious appreciation of ability which caused Moses to select Joshua as a commander in the battle with Amalek at Rephidim, where he won his first victory some years before. Joshua certainly had some, if not most, of the qualities which make a great general firmness and gentleness, winning ready trust and obedience from his men, decision and rapidity, whereby the enemy was sometimes virtually defeated before the action began. The plan of the invasion shows true military skill. Joshua succeeded in doing what French generals attempted and signally failed to do in the recent war with Germany. He chose a weak point near the middle of the frontier and pushed on to the centre of the country and beyond it, thus cutting the invaded land in two. The southern half was conquered or won over before the northern half had quite recovered from its panic, or could agree what to do against the invaders. The south being successfully subdued, the north was then conquered in like manner. The Canaanites were beaten in detail. From the miraculous ford at Jordan he pushed on to Jericho, from Jericho to Ai, from Ai to Gibeon, and from Gibeon to the Beth-borons, where his first great decisive battle was fought and won against the five kings of the Amorites, on the same spot where Judas Maccabseus more than twelve centuries later as triumphantly vanquished the Syrian army under Seron. There is no need to trouble ourselves with speculations as to the way in which the standing still of the sun and moon at the prayer of Joshua are to be reconciled with modern science. The mode of all miracles eludes us: the fact is all that concerns us to know. And if we cannot know the way in which something is created out of nothing, water becomes wine, and the like, it is idle to ask how that way is to be reconciled with other things. The rising and setting of the sun is always an illusion to our sight, for light takes time to travel. Science itself tells us that under certain conditions light travels more slowly than at other times, and those conditions are in the Almighty"s control. He who said, "Let there be light," can still make the light do His bidding, and did so in a signal manner at Beth-boron, that His servants might once more be assured that He was with them and fought for them, and that the foul inhabitants of Canaan might be dismayed.
The victory on the road between the two Beth-borons was soon followed by the others. Makkedah, Libnah, Laehish, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir (Kirjath-sepher), were captured one after another. And as it is said of Lachish alone that Israel "took it on the second day", (Jos_10:32) we are perhaps to understand that a single day sufficed for the capture of the other cities, so irresistible did the Israelites under Joshua appear to be. "So Joshua smote all the country of the hills (the mountain district of Judah), and of the south (the negeb, a limestone tract, half wilderness), and of the vale (the lowlands, or "plain of the Philistines"), and of the springs (or perhaps the slopes, i.e. , the swelling uplands between the "vale" and the "hills"), and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded. (Jos_10:40)
Thus, in a campaign of a few weeks at the most, the conquest of the south was accomplished. But even when we have recognised the excellence of the plan of the campaign, and the rapidity with which Joshua carried it out, we might still be surprised at his almost unbroken success, if it were not for the fact that "the Lord fought for Israel," and gave to them the elements as their allies. This southern portion of Palestine, Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, are strategically very strong, and capable of being obstinately defended. The deep valleys of Judah, and the ravines of Benjamin, running right and left from the central backbone, cut up the country into a number of more or less isolated eminences, equally suggestive of a hill fort for defence, or a "high place" for worship. The very names Gibeon, Gibeah, Geba, which all mean "hill," point to the physical character of the district. It shows what a panic had fallen upon the inhabitants that these natural defences were not utilised in withstanding the invaders. The fate of Bavarian armies in the Tyrol in the present century sufficiently illustrates what would be the probable result of an invasion of southern Palestine, if the country were stoutly defended by the population. But in this case the inhabitants were "discomfited"; (Jos_10:10; comp. Jud_1:4:15 1Sa_7:10 2Sa_22:15) troubled and dismayed by God, so that they could not hold together and organize a systematic resistance.
The conquest of northern Palestine follows. The combination of the five kings in the south arranged by Adoni-Zebek, king of Jerusalem, is imitated by Jabin, king of Hazer, who hopes to make a more successful combination of native sovereigns in the north. To strengthen it he tries to include such of the northern tribes also as would venture to try their fortune again the Amorites and the Hittites, with the still unconquered Jebusites. The attempt is so far successful that he gathered together "much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many". (Jos_11:4) But once more the promised help of Jehovah and the rapidity of Joshua"s movements secure the victory for Israel. Without waiting to be attacked, "Joshua came, and all the people of war with him, against them by the waters of Merom suddenly; and they fell upon them. (Jos_11:7) The result was the utter defeat of the confederates, a defeat which carried with it the submission of the north, as that at the Beth-herons had decided the fate of the south. The extermination of the Anakim followed, that old giant race of which we know so little; and then "the land rested from war". (Jos_11:23) The conquest of Palestine, so far as it required the united forces of all Israel, was over; not that there was not an immense deal still to be done in putting down risings, in consolidating what had been won, in capturing isolated and still unconquered cities; but this was left for the most part to the energy of the tribe to which the territory in question was assigned. The warlike half of Joshua"s great task was accomplished: the more peaceful work of dividing the conquered territory between the victorious tribes remained. The second half of the Book of Joshua (chs. 13-22), the Domesday Book of Palestine, is mainly taken up with the details of the distribution. They are no less honourable to the man who carried them out than the details of the campaign which rendered them possible. The division of Palestine among the tribes will bear comparison for equity, sagacity, and permanent results with perhaps most divisions of conquered territory in modern times, from the Norman conquest of England downwards. With characteristic unselfishness he waited until every one else had received their share before asking anything for himself; and then it was but a small portion in the rough mountain country that had been assigned to his own tribe of Ephraim. Here he built the city of Timnath-Serah, and spent the remainder of his days. How long he enjoyed the rest which something like a century of toil had earned, we do not know, for there is no clear indication of the number of years occupied by the conquest and division of the land. But he reached the age of a hundred and ten, and the end of his life was in harmony with the rest of it. His last public act was to summon the tribes with their officers to Shechem, already a place of solemn associations, (Jos_8:30-35 Gen_12:6, 7 33:18-20 35:2, 4) and the destined resting place of the bones of Joseph, (Jos_24:32) and gave them a farewell charge to remain ever faithful to Jehovah. It might seem as if such charge could scarcely be needed; self interest alone would suffice to secure fidelity; for never before or since has an invading force had such manifest help from Heaven. But Joshua knew his own nation. The murmurings and rebellions and idolatries in the wilderness were still fresh in his memory; and therefore, almost with his last breath, he exhorted them to beware of the abominations with which they had come in contact, and reminded them of the consequences both of obedience and disobedience. It is not as a warrior that the aged commander addresses them: it is not to talk over old campaigns, or to stir them up to future conquests, that he has sent for them: rather as one on the brink of the grave he would speak to them of the one thing needful holiness and the fear of the Lord. "And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun (no longer "Moses" minister," but now like Moses) the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old". (Jos_24:29) Thus, in the simplicity of mind in which he had lived, and fought, and ruled, this aged servant of the Lord passed away to that better country, of which the one which he had conquered was but a figure, and to a closer knowledge of Him under whose visible command he had fought at Jericho, (Jos_5:13-15; Jos_6:1-5) and of whom he had through life in so many particulars been a type.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Jos_4:8) seems to direct our attention to Joshua as a type of the Saviour. (comp. Act_7:45) Certainly Christian writers outside the New Testament, from Justin Martyr downwards, have delighted in this aspect of the son of Nun. The very name suggests it, although in interpreting Scripture we must be on our guard against fanciful ideas suggested by names. Hoshea (salvation) became Jehoshua, or Joshua (God"s salvation, or God the saviour). See Num_13:16 Num_14:6, Num_14:30. And in the LXX the Greek translation of the name is Ihsouv (Jesus), the form which the name assumes in the New Testament, where our translators have unfortunately retained the Greek, instead of returning to the Hebrew form. (Act_7:45 Heb_4:8) The following points seem in this case to justify our accepting the name as nomen et omen of a career full of blessed meaning.
(1) Joshua began his life by sharing the sufferings of his brethren in Egypt; so Jesus took upon Him the form of a servant, and shared the lot of His brethren.
(2) The imperfect work of Moses was taken up and completed by Joshua: in a far higher sense it was taken up and completed by Christ; the Law was perfected in the Gospel.
(3) In accordance with their common name, both saved the people given to them by the Father from their enemies.
(4) Both "went forth conquering, and to conquer;" and both conquered after being at first apparently defeated through the sins of others.
(5) Joshua brought the Chosen People into the Promised Land, and gave them rest and a home in it. Jesus brings the elect into the kingdom prepared for them, and gives them rest and an eternal home in the "many mansions" of the Father. Other analogies in matters of detail are at least interesting, although to some they may seem less certain than those already noticed.
(6) Both entered on their ministry on the banks of Jordan.
(7) Under Joshua the passage of Jordan as the road to the Land of Promise was freed from difficulty and danger. The river of death by which we must enter into our rest has been robbed of its terrors by Christ.
(8) The twelve stones taken from the bed of Jordan and set up as witnesses to the people of their deliverance may represent the twelve living "witnesses of His resurrection," and of our deliverance through His resurrection appointed by Christ.
(9) Joshua, when he had completed his work, ascended the mountain of Ephraim, and dwelt in security from his enemies. Jesus, having finished the work which the Father gave Him to do, (Joh_17:4) ascended up on high and sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. (Heb_10:12, Heb_10:13)
From very early times the extermination of the Canaanites in obedience to the command of God ("Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth; but thou shalt utterly destroy them Deu_20:16, Deu_20:17; comp. Num_21:2, Num_21:8, 35 33:52-54) has been urged as an objection against the morality of the Old Testament. Is such cruel severity in harmony with the Divine attributes? This question seems to call for some notice here. The following considerations are of importance in forming a judgment on it:
(1) The age was one of imperfect knowledge of God, and consequent imperfect morality. "Because of the hardness of men"s hearts," acts were allowed and even commanded under the Law which are diseouraged or forbidden under the Gospel.
(2) It was also an age in which the idea of individual rights and individual responsibility was very imperfect. Property belonged to the community, not to the individual Communities were held responsible for the acts of individual members, and, conversely, communities exacted retribution for wrongs done to individual members. The punishment of a whole nation was therefore quite in harmony with the prevailing sentiment of justice.
(3) It was more important that this strong sentiment of justice should be turned in the right direction, viz., against the worst forms of sin, than that in its exercise it should carefully discriminate between a criminal and his connections. God"s revelations are gradual; and as man could not learn the morality of the Gospel all at once, the most necessary elements were insisted on first.
(4) Although it would have been possible to punish the Canaanites, as Sodom and Gomorrha were punished, without employing the sword of Israel, yet this would have been less generally beneficial. The Israelites were the trustees of the morality of the world. If they had lost their sacred deposit in the abominations of Canaan, the whole human race might have sunk to the level of Sodom. Warnings, like the fate of Korah and his company, lost their effect in time. Nothing could impress the hatefulness and peril of sin so strongly upon the Israelites as to make them themselves the instruments of God"s vengeance on those who persisted in sin. These considerations will go far to explain God"s command so far as it affected those who had to execute it. With regard to those on whom it was executed we must remember further:
(5) That it was a punishment for sins of the most abominable and contagious kind.
(6) That the Canaanites were not only heinous sinners, but sinners against light: they had had the pure lives and pure worship of the patriarchs among them for generations.
(7) They had had the warning of the fate of the cities of the plain at their very doors, even if the tradition of the flood had perished among them.
It remains to say a few words about the book in which the history of these great types and warnings is contained. Its single and inartificial style leads us to place it earlier than the less archaic Books of Kings and Chronicles. The Jews believed it to be written by Joshua, and this view was followed by the Fathers, and as regards much of the book, at any rate, is still advocated by some modern critics. It is Clear that the account of Joshua"s death, and the statement that "the Jebusites dwelt with the children of Judah at Jerusalem", (Jos_15:63) point to a date later than Joshua. Moreover, the conquests of Hebron by Caleb, of Debir by Othniel, and of Laish by the Danites, were almost certainly not completed until after the death of Joshua. (comp. Jos_15:13-20 Jos_19:47 with Jud_1:10-15, and Jos_18:7) On the other hand, the book seems to be written dining the lifetime of Rahab, (Jos_6:25) and by one who took part in the campaign, (Jos_5:1) and must certainly be earlier than the time of David. (Jos_15:63) The hypothesis that it waswritten, or at least completed, after Joshua"s death by some one who obtained a great deal of material from Joshua himself, seems to harmonize with all these points, and also to account for the great minuteness of detail which characterizes portions of the books. Its contents are alluded to in the Psalms, (Psa_44:2, 8 68:12-14 78:54, 55) in the Prophets, (Isa_28:21 Hab_3:11-13) and in the New Testament; (Act_7:45 Heb_4:8 Heb_11:30-31 Jam_2:25) and its canonicity has never been disputed either among Jews or Christians. It stands in somewhat the same relation to the Pentateuch as the Acts of the Apostles to the Gospels. While the Pentateuch gives the origin and principles of Judaism, and the Gospels those of Christianity, in the Books of Joshua and of the Acts of the Apostles we see those principles in action. The two books give us the youth the one of the Jewish and the other of the Christian Church. In each case we are introduced to the first beginnings of ecclesiastical history. It is important to keep this aspect of the Book of Joshua constantly in view, in order to retain an adequate appreciation of its significance. Neither the Pentateuch nor the Gospels are primarily historical. They are rather the textbooks of the Old and New Covenant; and the historical elements which they contain is there not so much as history as in order to explain the origin, and illustrate the meaning, of the covenant in each case. The Book of Joshua and the Acts are primarily historical. There object is to show how the promises made to the Church were in the first instance fulfilled, and how provision was made for a still larger fulfilment in the future. If this estimate of the two books is correct, we must at once give up the notion that the Book of Joshua is a mere appendix to the Pentateuch, possibly by the same hand. It would be more reasonable to regard it as a preface to the books that follow. Yet, strictly speaking, it is neither; it is a complete whole in itself, a necessary link in the great chain of events by which the Jewish dispensation prepared the way for the Gospel.
THE AGE OF THE JUDGES.
Although, in one sense, we are still in the same period of Jewish history, that which is commonly called the Theocracy, yet we feel that we have passed into a different atmosphere when we pass from the rule of Joshua to the rule of the Judges. It is something like passing from the age of heroism to the age of chivalry; from an age in which the chief figures seem to be far above us, and almost to belong to another world, to one in which we feel at home, because the prominent characters both in their strength and in their weakness are like ourselves. Where they are great, it is not an unapproachable grandeur, but one that we could imagine to belong to our own generation; and they are not always great. When they fall they prove to us that the age of chivalry is not very far removed from that of barbarism, and even contains some taint of savagery in itself. Something of this kind may be in our thoughts when we leave the calm, majestic guidance of Moses and Joshua for the turbulent rule of Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson.
Of all the books in the Bible the Book of Judges is perhaps the most human. In most of the books the Divine element is so strong, or we are in the habit of keeping it so constantly in view, that we are apt to forget that the actors in the various scenes are not merely instruments in the hands of the Almighty, but men and women with wills and passions like ourselves. In the history of the Judges it is impossible to forget this. The difficulty is rather the other way: viz., to understand how men so faulty, so barbarous, one might almost say, so brutal, came to be chosen by Almighty God as the deliverers and rulers of His people. In this respect the Book of Judges and the Book of Ruth may go together. The one gives the roughness and wildness, the other the sweetness and tenderness of life; but both in their way are intensely human. There is manifest gain in this, and it may be one of the special lessons intended to be conveyed by these two writings. Just as in the case of Jesus Christ Himself it is possible to lay so much emphasis on His Divinity as to lose sight of His perfect humanity; so also in the revelation which He has granted to us, of His dealings with mankind, it is easy to fix our eyes so continually on the Divine decrees and their fulfilment, as to forget that throughout it all man"s will was free, and that God worked not with soulless machines, but with persons who had the terrible privilege of being able to follow their own wills rather than His, if they so pleased. This is everywhere apparent in the Book of Judges. Not only is God"s Chosen People as a whole frequently in rebellion against Him, but those who were specially selected out of them (eklektwn eklektoteroi ), as agents peculiarly set apart to carry out His purposes, are wayward to a degree that makes the question, Quis custodit ipsos custodes, eminently pertinent respecting them.
There is a wild freshness about the Book of Judges which tells of youth and independence, and freedom from restraint and care: the freshness of nature anal the freshness of human life. It is mountain and woodland scenery filled with the thrilling incidents of the romances of chivalry. It is a tale of ancient times, and therefore it has all the interest of what lays outside our own everyday experience. It is a tale of men and women like ourselves, and, therefore, we can realise it all. But the freshness and the independence have their dark side. It is an age in which freedom too often means license, and anarchy, and violence. What is human is too often barbarous, even savage and bestial. The lower part of man"s nature is ever coming to the front and often takes the upper hand. Hence the story is no mere idyll of pastoral brightness, no mere epic of the triumph of what is noble and pure. The cry of suffering alternates with the cry of victory, and the tragic element is not wanting; the right is too often a "random right," and there is abundance of "random wrong." Thus the pathos of tragedy and the brilliancy of romance go hand in hand. There is yet another element, not prominent but distinctly present here and there, which must not be passed over, because it makes the picture all the more true to life. A vein of humour, almost of drollery, comes to the surface at times, making us feel still more at home with those of whose doings we read. We almost see the twinkle in the eyes of the men of Dan as they say to their brethren, "Do ye know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, a graven image, and a molten image? now, therefore, consider what ye have to do". (Jos_18:14) And, again, when they have carried off these things, and the owners come after them to complain, there is the same spirit of fun in their question, "What aileth thee that thou comest with such a company?" (ver. 28). This element is specially strong in the history of Samson, whose exploits have a rollicking air about them, which appeals at once to the spirit of adventure and mischief with which we all of us have more or less sympathy. Note especially the grim humour with which, in the last terrible scene, he prays to be avenged "for one of my two eyes," according to the emended translation.
It is not difficult to catch the narrator"s own point of view. Four times in the course of his narrative he reminds us that "in those days there was no king in Israel", (Jos_17:6 Jos_18:1 Jos_19:1 Jos_21:25) and twice he adds, as the natural consequence of this, "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." This is the refrain, the echo of which resounds throughout the whole book. And what was the result of every man doing that which was right in his own eyes? In a sentence of still more ominous frequency, (Jos_2:11 Jos_3:7, 12 4:1 6:1 10:6 13:1) he tells us again and again that "the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord," "the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord." Thus we have a regular cycle of cause and effect sin produces punishment, and punishment amendment, and amendment deliverance, and deliverance presumption with fresh apostacy and sin, with which the cycle begins again. So long as Joshua and his contemporaries lived, (Jos_2:7, Jos_2:10) the Israelites remained faithful to Jehovah; but after them arose a godless generation who fell into the snares of which Joshua had warned them (the seductive idolatries of the nations round about them), and served Baal and Ashtoreth. The period is one of transition; the old rulers, Moses and Joshua, have passed away and kings have not yet arisen. And now that the external pressure of common dangers is removed, another great bond of union is taken away. The nation is in danger of disintegration almost before it is formed, and is falling apart into tribes, or at most groups of tribes, each with separate, and sometimes, conflicting interests. This is the peril from within. And there is peril also from without. The conquered populations are neither expelled, nor absorbed, nor perfectly subdued. Like the Britons under the Saxons, and the Saxons under the Danes and under the Normans, they still kept possession of large districts and important points. They were biding their time, and perhaps, like the Saxons in the case of the Danes, might still get the upper hand. Moreover, the nations outside Palestine were not friendly to the invaders, who might any day cross the border and turn against them. Thus a great deal of the work of Joshua had to be done over again. Cities and districts had to be reconquered; and where the Israelites had fallen away into idolatry, there was reconquest on the side of the Canaanites. What with division and apostasy within, seduction and hostility without, it looked as if the possession of the Promised Land by the Israelites was destined to be very brief.
Yet, although in certain respects the period under the Judges is retrograde, it is retrogression preliminary to and possibly necessary to further advance. The tide was advancing, though the waves frequently went back; and human progress is no river, but a tide that ebbs and flows and moves in circles fitfully. In two marked particulars this time of apparent disintegration and anarchy had great influence on the future development of the nation. First, the Israelites were passing through the all important change from a nomad to a settled life; they were ceasing to be mere herdsmen, and were becoming agriculturists. Secondly, the isolation of the wilderness was at an end; they were becoming rapidly acquainted, both for good and for evil, with other civilisations besides their own.
The change from a wandering to a stationary life was not made suddenly. During their long halts in the wilderness there had been some preparation for it; and a fertile tract will tempt even permanently nomadic tribes to settle long enough to sow and reap a harvest. And now that the Israelites had reached their goal, and looked forward to no more wandering, we need not suppose that the wanderers settled down at once, each on his own allotment. Within the limits of each tribe there would be room enough for much changing before a permanent home was made; for the theory that the divisions of property made by the Canaanites were adopted, just as they stood, by the Israelites cannot be regarded as probable, or more than in a very remote degree possible. Everything Canaanitish was an abomination.
Re this as it may, the important fact remains that during this period a large portion of the Israelites became agricultural.
The change from a life of isolation to one of constant intercourse with others was scarcely less pregnant with results. The hermit nation had returned after long years of solitude into the world; and had at once come in contact with nations whose language was near enough to their own to render intercourse easy, and moreover who, in trade, and art, and civilisation generally, were greatly in advance of themselves. As we might expect, this was specially the case with the nations who inhabited the seaboard of Palestine, and whose opportunities for commerce were the greatest the Phoenicians and the Philistines. Tyre and Sidon had already reached a condition of strength and prosperity, and seem, like the nation of traders that they were, at once to have made the coming of the Israelites a mere matter of business. Neither side appears to have attempted to molest the other, and commercial relations soon began to exist between the Phoenicians and the Israelites. It would seem that the easy going life of the Sidonians had passed into a proverb; (Jud_1:18:7) the fact probably being that, so long as their commerce was secure, they never troubled themselves to fight for anything; the "peace-at-all-price" policy of a mercantile nation. It was very much otherwise with the Philistines. Their intercourse with the Israelites was by no means of so friendly a nature. Immigrants like the Phoenicians and the Israelites, but at a very early age, they were much less disposed than either to rest peaceably within the limits of the territory which they had occupied. They were a warlike rather than a commercial people, and seem to have possessed a considerable military organization. Their five confederate cities, Gaza, Askelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron, were strong enough to dispossess Dan, to conquer Judah, and towards the end of this period to make their heavy hand felt in other tribes as well. While the Phoenicians remained friendly or indifferent towards the newcomers, the Philistines were actively aggressive. The attitude, therefore, of these two important nations towards the Israelites may serve, very well as samples of the varied influences to which the Chosen People were subjected now that they had come into contact at every corner of the land, and here and there in the very centre of it, with strangers. Roughly speaking, the Israelites held the hill country while the Canaanites held the plains. The Israelites had hardly anything but infantry, and in the plains, where cavalry and chariots were most effective, they were at a great disadvantage against the Canaanites, who were often very strong in both. It is scarcely too much to say that throughout the greater part of their sojourn in Palestine, the Israelites were not masters of their own plains; these were so constantly at the mercy of either Canaanites or Syrians.
These two facts the change from a nomadic to a stationary and generally an agricultural life, and the intercourse, friendly or hostile, with other nations are among the chief forces which are at work during the period of the Judges to mould the nation into the form in which we find it under the early kings. And indeed, other seed is being sown to bear fruit in a still more distant future. In the selfish indifference with which one tribe regards the calamities of another, in the jealous rivalry which shows itself between them, especially between the more powerful tribes, we see the first beginnings of the strife which was to end in the permanent disruption of the nation. Deborah complains bitterly of the apathy of Reuben, Dan, and Asher, during the oppression of Zebulon and Naphtali; and any joint action between Judah and Ephraim was evidently not looked for. Judah is not even mentioned, as if its absence on such an occasion was a matter of course. This silence respecting Judah is not confined to the Song of Deborah. During the whole period there is very little mention of this tribe. On the principle that happy is the nation that has no history, we may consider this silence as being to the credit of those whose doings are left unrecorded. Simeon, the neighbour of Judah, shares this honourable obscurity. We can only conjecture the cause; but it is not improbable that these two tribes, secure in their mountain fastnesses, remained aloof from the others, neither mixing in their squabbles nor sharing their dangerous intercourse with the heathen. Omitting Ibzan and Shamgar as doubtful, only one of the numerous Judges belonged to Judah Othniel, who was perhaps the first of the Judges. The reason may have been that, being comparatively free from the disorders which troubled the rest of the Israelites, these two southern tribes had no need of exceptional deliverers and rulers. And even Othniel was not in the strictest sense of Judah. He is called "son of Kenaz", (Jos_1:18) and his elder brother Caleb is described both as a "Kenezite", (Num_32:12) and also of Judah. (Num_13:6) The Kenezites belonged to the old inhabitants, (Gen_15:19) so that some of them at any rate must have been allowed to unite with the tribe of Judah, and to be counted as members of the tribe. This remarkable adoption by so exalted a tribe as Judah is of great interest, and has a parallel in the case of the Kenites. Kenaz was a descendant of Esau; and if the Kenites were Midianites, they also sprang from Abraham; so that the Kenezites and Kenites, though not Israelites, were not absolute aliens. The fact that Othniel, the Kenezite, delivered Israel from an invasion which came from the north, seems to show that in this first oppression, and probably in this one only, the whole land was overrun. From most of the troubles of this period Judah remained exempt; and we have some evidence that this was due to its own good conduct. First, we have the beautiful picture of quiet and pure domestic life preserved for us in the Book of Ruth, in tremendous contrast to the episodes of Micah and the Danites, the men of Gibeah and the Benjamite war, the act of Jael, and the whole history of Samson and of Jephthah. Secondly, there is the evident superidrity of the tribe of Judah, so soon as it emerges from its obscurity under David. True that Judah did not altogether escape the oppression of the Amorites, and still less that of the Philistines; yet they were not ground down as were other tribes by these oppressions; and in David"s time they more than paid their debt to both. The remainder of the tribes on the west of Jordan were far from united among themselves; but the tendency was to acquiesce in the pretensions of Ephraim, which lost no opportunity of asserting itself. Thus the way was steadily being prepared for the future division of the kingdom. The two and a half tribes on the other side of the Jordan were cut off by this natural barrier from much intercourse with their brethren. Nor were they united among themselves. Here also, as on the west bank, the southern most remained aloof. But the isolation of Reuben was far less honorable than that of Judah. Reuben, the first born, sinks down into an obscurity from which it never emerges. Out of Reuben arises no judge, no hero, no prophet. Deborah singles it out for scornful reproach, and this is almost the last mention of the tribe. While Gad and Manasseh produced valiant men, and sometimes gave a refuge to their suffering brethren from the western bank, Reuben remained apart in well to do repose, absolutely cut off from Judah by the Dead Sea, and not having much intercourse even with Gilead.
Thus, then, the nation which had entered Canaan in the strength of infernal purity and union under one leader, had fallen apart into at least four unequal and irregular groups, two on each side of the Jordan. On the west bank
(1) Judah and Simeon, probably far the best representatives of the old purity and discipline, and for this reason, as well as from the character of their territory, the strongest of the groups.
(2) The remainder of the tribes on this bank, not really united, but all more or less acquiescing in the precedence claimed by Ephraim. On the east bank
(3) half Manasseh and Gad, on fairly good terms with the western tribes, but prevented by the Jordan from being very intimate.
(4) Reuben, in comfortable and ignoble solitude.
It would have gone very hard with the Israelites during this period of serious dismemberment if something of the same kind had not prevailed among the Canaanites also. We have seen the ill success of the hastily formed leagues, first in the south and then in the north, against Joshua. A successor, and possibly a descendant of the Jabin, king of Hazor, who formed the northern league on that occasion, was the author of the twenty years of oppression from which Deborah and Barak delivered Israel. Only so long as his general Sisera kept the key of the position with his 900 chariots at Harosheth of the Gentiles, could the domination of Jabin be maintained. If the various Canaanite cities (which still remained scattered about like so many dark islands, in the midst of the tribes) had combined with Jabin, the Israelites would have been enclosed in a network of hostile fortresses, from which it might have required another miraculous campaign, like that of Joshua, to free them. Gezer in Ephraim, Jebus in Benjamin, Bethshean, Ibleam, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor in Manasseh, Kitron and Nahalol in Zebulon; while in the case of Asher and Naphtali the proportion of Canaanites was so large that, whereas of other tribes it was said that "the Canaanites dwelt among them," of them it was said that "they dwelt among the Canaanites". (Jud 1:32, 33) The map will show how these facts illustrate the statement made above, that the Israelites could not gain possession of the plains. Gazer and Dor are in the plain of Sharon; Bethshean, Megiddo, and Taanach in the plain of Esdraelon. Nahalol was probably in the plain of Esdraelon also, but neither the name nor the situation of the city can be determined with certainty. During Jabin"s domination the northern tribes were practically prisoners in their own land; and had these constellations of Canaanite cities joined vigorously with him his success would have been still greater, and might have been indefinitely prolonged. But Jehovah had willed it otherwise. Even as it was, these Canaanites cities worked disaster enough: they were permanent centres of religious and moral corruption.
Thus far, then, we have arrived at these characteristics of the period under consideration.
(1) It was a time of great freedom tending to anarchy. The paternal rule of Moses and Joshua was removed, and the tribes resorted to democratic government before they were in the least degree ripe for it. The result was that there was very little government at all.
(2) A large proportion of the nation was rapidly changing from/he pastoral to the agricultural state; an advance without which the future development of the nation would have been impossible.
(3) Both inside and outside Palestine the Israelites were abandoning a condition of isolation for one of contact and intercourse with a variety of nationalities, in culture superior, in religion and morality vastly inferior, to themselves; a change productive of calamitous results, but not unmixed evil.
(4) The external pressure of a common and imminent danger being removed, and the bulk of the territory being conquered, the tribes were falling apart from one another, each following its own selfish interest. A common danger at times reunited those who felt its pressure; but generally there was a tendency to separate into loosely connected groups. The worship of Jehovah was to a large extent deserted for Canaanitish idolatries, and thus the highest of all bonds of union was lost. Hence
(5) their various enemies gained strength and subjugated large portions of the country from time to time. Had their enemies been united among themselves, and had the suffering which they inflicted failed to check the canker of political and religious disintegration which was ruining Israel, the land would probably have relapsed into the hands of its former owners, and the Israelites would have been reconquered and absorbed. But the sharp medicine administered again and again at last did its work: and after a long and uneven struggle the purer religion and the nobler race prevailed.
But meanwhile the purer religion was almost lost. In the wilderness the Israelites had lived, as it were, in a religious hothouse. They had been kept apart from the common atmosphere, and had lived in a world of their own. In this way they had been brought up to a spiritual elevation, which was partly supernatural and partly artificial. The supernatural influences of perceptible communication with Jehovah had ceased; the artificial restraint of complete isolation had been thrown aside; and they appeared to be left to do "what seemed good in their eyes." The result showed that they were quite unequal to so severe a trial. Those who lived at a distance from the tabernacle at Shiloh at most went up to it only once a year, probably for the most attractive and joyous of the feasts, that of Tabernacles. What was out of sight soon went out of mind, and the ordinances of religion were one by one forgotten. With no one to read the Law to them, with no religious ceremonial to teach them by the eye, large numbers grew up in the grossest ignorance as regards creed and worship. Superstitious observances grew up under trees and in high places. Jehovah was represented by images. This soon led to a still graver profanation. The image of Jehovah became only one of many, and His worship was mingled with that of heathen deities. In many cases the last and final step was taken, and the worship of the one true God was entirely abandoned for that of Baal and Ashtoreth. Thus the belief of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the unity of God, the creed which had ennobled and sustained Israel through so many generations, was tampered with, and corrupted, and in many cases lost. Such was the price which Israel paid for premature intercourse with higher civilisations.
And thus, as in the case of Paradise, the Divine ideal had been frustrated by the free will and self will of man. Had God"s commands been obeyed, the polluting influence of the Canaanites would have been expelled or extinguished, and His people would have been free to receive and cherish and develop, in His own good time, the revelation which He had partly given and partly had still in store for them. Secure from seductions and hindrances from without, bound together by their common privileges within, they would not only have preserved their old level of spiritual enlightenment, but would have risen steadily to a still higher one. But, as of old, the forbidden fruit seemed "good for food," and "pleasant to the eyes," and a thing "to be desired to make one wise;" and when once it was tasted the mischief was done. The whole Jewish race from that day to this has paid the penalty; just as the whole human race has paid the penalty of Adam"s transgression. The two Captivities with their lasting consequences were the direct result of the idolatry which dates from this forbidden intercourse with the Canaanites. The lesson is similar to that taught in Eden. Man"s free will involves the possibility of a fall, and one fall renders another fall probable. Man"s fallen nature can be regenerated only through suffering: and thus, what was in the first instance a punishment, by God"s mercy becomes in the end a blessing. The certainty of punishment for sin, the possibility of repentance, the discipline of suffering these are the great lessons of the Book of Judges.
The period has been compared with the heroic age in Greece and other pagan lands. The analogy holds good in several interesting points, in both there is an invasion of new territory, and the prowess of the heroes is exhibited in the struggle with the primitive inhabitants for possession. In both there is a startling mixture of virtue and vice, of what is noble with what is vile, of splendid self sacrifice and bravery with savagery, treachery, and lust. The analogy fails, however, in one most important particular.
Even in the wildest of the Jewish heroes we find a consciousness of a divine mission, and a reliance on God, of which pagan heroes show little trace. And although brutal acts of licentiousness and cruelty are only too frequent amongst both, yet the popular conscience regards them with abhorrence in the one case, while it applauds them or looks upon them as a matter of course in the other. A truer analogy seems to be found in the age of Christian chivalry; e.g., in the Crusades, a struggle for the same territory. There also we find a hideous amount of evil mixed with the good; there also the evil too often triumphed while the good failed: but this must ever be the case where an appeal is made on a large scale to force. Yet there was the moral, the religious purpose at bottom, however much it might be alloyed or overlaid with ignoble motives. And in the general outcome of the period of the Judges, as of the Crusades, the world has been greatly the gainer. Along with a mere love of adventure, which is neither right nor wrong, along with treachery and cruelty and other grievous crimes, committed both in the name of and in defiance of religion, there was a power and a reality in both, calculated to bring out all that is heroic in human nature: love of liberty, admiration of prowess, sympathy with suffering, patient endurance when hope seemed gone, perseverance to the end.
The chronology of the period is involved in obscurity, but this need not cause any serious difficulty. Chronology is not what the compiler of the various narratives aimed at giving us; and therefore we need not be surprised that clear marks of time are wanting. The whole period is perhaps about a century and a half, as seems to be indicated by the genealogies. To add up the years of alternate oppressions and rests given in the book itself would only lead us astray: for
(1) the narratives possibly run parallel to one another in certain cases, being accounts of what was going on in different parts of Canaan at one and the same time;
(2) no great reliance can be placed upon the frequently recurring numbers, twenty, (Jud_1:4:8 15:20 16:31) forty, (Jud_1:3:11 5:31 8:28 13:1) eighty, (Jud_1:3:30) which may be round numbers with no pretension to exactness. Modern chronologers vary from 150 to 800 years; ancient writers give double that amount; e.g., Josephus 592, Eusebius 600. The date of the compilation of the book and the name of the compiler are both unknown. In its present form it must be comparatively late, for in what is sometimes called the Appendix (chs. 17-21) the writer shows that not only Shiloh has ceased to be the seat of the tabernacle, (Jud_1:18:31) and that there have been kings in Israel, (Jos_17:6 Jos_18:1 Jos_19:1 Jos_21:25) but also, according to the more probable interpretation, that the Assyrian captivity has taken place. (Jud_1:18:30) This would place the writer of this portion after B.C. 721, and probably a still later date must be taken for the final redaction in its existing form. But the best scholars are not agreed on the subject; and for ordinary students of the Bible to attempt to pronounce an opinion on these different theories is perhaps not a profitable exercise. It will be wiser for us to study what this unknown writer has preserved for us, and to be thankful to Him through whose providence it has been preserved.
There are no quotations from the Book of Judges in the New Testament, but there are references to its contents in Act_13:20 and Heb_11:32. Allusions in the Psalms and in the Prophets are frequent.
The Book of Ruth, as already indicated, may be considered as another Appendix to the Book of Judges. It gives us the other side of the picture; natural affection, domestic piety, gentleness, and quietude, in contrast with the troubled scenes in which Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson move. Probably neither Appendix is in its proper chronological position; but the effect is for that very reason all the more striking. From the hideous deed of the men of Gibeah and its bloody consequences, we turn with relief and refreshment to the beautiful devotion of Ruth the Moabitess, and to the sunny cornfields of Bethlehem. Besides this the book contains the genealogy of David, from the time of the patriarchs onwards; from Pharez, the son of Judah and Tamar, to Jesse the Bethlehemite. This genealogy is of great historical value, not only as a portion of the genealogy of the Messiah, and as containing that portion of it which marks the founding of the house at Bethlehem, but also as a guide to the chronology of the period. Salmon, the husband of Rahab and first proprietor of Bethlehem, is the grandfather of 0bed, the grandfather of David; i.e. , three, or possibly four, generations cover the period of the Judges. Excepting so far as this genealogy agrees with those in St. Matthew and St. Luke, and may be one of the sources used by the Evangelists, there is no quotation from the Book of Ruth or any reference to it in the New Testament. The typical character of the book must also be borne in mind in connexion with the lineage of the Messiah. The union of Ruth the Moabitess with a man of the tribe of Judah foreshadows that union of Jew and Gentile in Him who sprang from this marriage. Those who are admitted to the high honour of being ancestors of Christ, are an earnest of the all embracing character of His kingdom. If among them are included the incestuous Tamar, the harlot Rahab, and the Moabitess Ruth, there are none who may not hope, by doing the will of God, to be equal to His brother, and sister, and mother. (Mar_3:35)
THE LAST OF THE JUDGES. ELI
At first sight it may appear strange that the two last who held the office of Judge in Israel are not included in the Book of the Judges, but are noticed at the beginning of a series of books, which in the Vulgate bear the appropriate names of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Books of Kings. The common titles, derived from the printed Hebrew Bible, are less appropriate, for of the First and Second Books of Samuel only part of the First Book tells of Samuel, all the remainder of the two Books being filled with the reigns of Saul and David. The including of Eli and Samuel in this series rather than in the Book of Judges would seem all the more strange, if (as some suppose) all these five books were compiled about the same time, and possibly by the same hand. And yet the arrangement is perhaps not only a justifiable one but the best that could have been made. For
(1) the judgeship of Eli and Samuel is a very different office from that which was held by Gideon, Ehud, or Samson;
(2) the importance of Samuel does not consist in his closing the list of Judges, but in his preparing the way for the monarchy, and in particular for David, the type and most notable progenitor of the Messiah.
The judgeship of Eli and Samuel was permanent, sacerdotal, and perhaps, in virtue of its connexion with the sacerdotal orifice, was intended to be hereditary. The office of the earlier judges was the reverse of all this. It was exceptional and provisional; like the dictatorship among the Romans, a temporary concentration of. the rower in the hands of one man in order to meet a crisis. Moreover, it had no connexion with the priesthood; not one of the earlier Judges was of priestly descent. The attempt of Abimelech, the son of Gideon, to inherit some of his father"s power failed. In what way the office became so changed as we find it in Eli"s hands is unknown. Between Samson"s overthrow of the Philistine temple at Gaza and the Philistines" overthrow of the sanctuary at Shiloh, there is a blank in the sacred narrative which we cannot fill. How did Eli, who belonged to the family of Ithamar, Aaron"s second son, become high priest, although the line of Eleazar, the eldest son, was not extinct? How did Eli come to be both high priest and judge? These are questions which we can only answer conjecturally. But it may easily have been the case that Eli was elected judge for exploits against the Philistines early in life, and that, being a descendant of Aaron, the fact of his being judge led to his obtaining the high priesthood also. The kind-hearted old man whom we find sitting at the entrance to the sanctuary of Shiloh, when the narrative begins again, can scarcely be one who gained office by violence or fraud. Nothing of the kind is laid to his charge, when for his sons" iniquity and his weakness in not restraining them his family is brought to ruin. But the great influence which he enjoyed is shown by the fact that, even after the heavy blow fell upon his house, we find his descendants, Ahijah with Saul, and Abiathar with David, in honourable priestly offices.
Nothing shows more dearly the depth of the moral degradation into which the people had fallen during the time of the Judges than the conduct of Eli"s sons. In the very sanctuary itself, and in the ministers to it, we find the most barefaced cupidity and wantonness. Hophni and Phinehas are the prototypes of grasping and sensual ecclesiastics throughout all ages; and the consequences of their sins, to the congregation, to the sanctuary, and to themselves, are warnings of the judgment which must fall sooner or later upon corruption and profligacy in high and sacred places. Micah"s Levite in the Book of Judges is a similar though less glaring instance. And yet, great as the plague spot is, one sees that Israel is still sound at heart. The conduct of the priests is felt to be a scandal; it is not ignored or laughed at: "men abhorred the offerings of the Lord." The depth has not yet been reached when "My people love to have it so". (Jer_5:31)
The superstitious carrying of the ark of the covenant into the field of battle is another sign of the corruption of the times; and it again has its counterpart in more modern times in the canting of the consecrated host as a sort of charm against danger. The guilty priests, having no spiritual or moral influence with the people, resort to this material emblem as a means of inspiriting the disheartened troops. The battlefield of Aphek, close to the scene of happier auspices, Beth-horon, and itself the scene of a victory a few years later, (1Sa_7:12) was to decide whether the Philistines should be the slaves of the Hebrews, or the Hebrews of the Philistines. "On the success of this wager of battle the priestly milers of the nation had staked the most sacred pledge of their religion." Staked and lost both it and the sanctuary, and their own miserable lives also. The Philistines, believing that they were contending against terrific odds, and that the God of the Hebrews was in the ranks of their opponents, fought with the courage of despair. We read of the capture of the ark and of the death of Eli; but of what must have followed soon after, the violent overthrow or rapid decay of the sanctuary of Shiloh, we are not told. But its desolation passed into a proverb as a monument of Divine judgment. "Go ye now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it, for the wickedness of My people Israel". (Jer_7:12) "Then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth." "This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant". (Jer_26:6, Jer_26:9) Still more striking, because so incidental, is the notice of it at the end of the Book of Judges. "Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan." "Shiloh, which is in the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Sheehem, and on the south of Lebonah". (Jos_21:12, Jos_21:19) At the time when this was written the very site of Shiloh was so little known that it needed to be thus minutely described; and this exact description enabled Dr. Robinson in 1838 to discover the site. He found the name still surviving among the shepherds of the neighbourhood as Seilun.
Each of the three great epochs in the history of the Jews ends with the destruction of the visible sanctuary. The fact may teach us, as Ewald points out, that the history of Israel is the history of a religion rather than of a nation. "They are not all Israel which are of Israel;" and "he is not a Jew which is one outwardly". (Rom_9:6 Rom_2:28) The Theocracy ended with the downfall of the sanctuary at Shiloh, directly or indirectly through the spoliation by the Philistines. The monarchy ended with the destruction of the first temple of Jerusalem by the armies of Babylon. The period after the Captivity ended with the destruction of the last temple of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus. Each overthrow was worse than the previous one, and each might have warned the Jews that along with their sanctuary a period of probation had passed away. The destruction by the Chaldeans prepared the deathbed, the destruction by the Romans prepared the funeral, of the Jewish religion. The glory of it departed with the one, the very possibility of life was extinguished by the other. Since the ruin wrought by Titus the keeping of the law has been a physical impossibility. But the overthrow of the first sanctuary was a judgment that was turned into a blessing. It inspired a yearning and prepared the way for something higher for a more glorious sanctuary on a nobler site, where a renovated priesthood should minister to a chastened and purified people.
THE LAST OF THE JUDGES. SAMUEL.
Samuel, like the Baptist, closes one great era and inaugurates a new one; like the Baptist also, he nominates a successor greater than himself. Both men, grand in themselves, the one at the beginning, the other at the end of "the goodly fellowship of the prophets," derive their chief importance from that which they inaugurate rather than from that which they are, or do, themselves. Samuel has this further characteristic peculiar to himself; he inaugurated the new system against his own previous convictions. He himself regarded the new departure as a lamentable abandonment of what had hitherto been the ideal, the ideal of Sinai and of Ebal and Gerizim. And yet, as soon as he saw that the change was inevitable, with all the generosity and wisdom of a noble nature and an open mind, he flung himself into the new movement, if not with enthusiasm, at least with energy and devotion. If a new constitution must come, it should be the very best that he could make it. The people had refused to listen to him and had insisted on their own cravings; that should not make him stand moodily aloof while they blindly followed the evil models of Canaanitish monarchies. At first he did his utmost to make the old system meet the requirements of the age; when he found out that this was impossible, he had the courage to own it to himself, and the nobleness to transfer his energies to the movement which he personally disliked. As was natural, his interest in it grew with the work; and that which at first he would have prevented from existing, he before long loved and fostered as his own child.
The judgeship of Samuel resembles that of Eli more than that of the previous Judges, but it was not the same. Samuel and Eli were alike in this, that both were ecclesiastics holding the highest civil office, and that the office was permanent and not provisional. But Samuel, though a Levite and a Nazarite, was not of the family of Aaron, and therefore could not be, as Eli was, high priest. On the other hand, Samuel was what Eli was not, a prophet, and from the first was recognised as such. (1Sa_3:19-21) This supernatural fact a great deal more than compensated for his not holding a high priestly office. Indeed, in Eli"s time, the priesthood had fallen so low that probably the office gained far more influence from his personal character and civil dignity than it conferred by its peculiar sanctity. On the whole, the history of the Jewish priesthood, from Aaron to Caiaphas, is the history of a tremendous failure; a conspicuous illustration of the maxim, corruptio optimi fit pessima.
A Levite by birth, a Nazarite by the devotion of his parents, judge by the election of the people, prophet by the consecration of Jehovah, Samuel united in himself all the moral and spiritual gifts by which he could most powerfully influence the people whom he had to rule. How long an interval elapsed between the death of Eli and the election of Samuel we do not know; but the trouble into which the victory of the Philistines at Aphek plunged the land would make the people soon feel the need of another ruler: and the fact of Samuel being already recognised as a prophet would point him out as the man. Nor is it quite certain whether his being judge led him to assemble the people at Mizpeh, or whether his victory led to his being elected judge. Be this as it may, on the very same field of Aphek, he so broke the power of the invading Philistines that for years they never again crossed the frontier, and moreover had to surrender the cities near the frontier which they had won from the Israelites. The warlike Amorites also, in the western mountains of Judaea, now withdrew from their connexion with the Philistines, and accepted the protectorate of Israel. But we are, perhaps, not to suppose that the Philistine yoke was absolutely thrown off; at any rate, perfect liberty, if it was regained for a time, was lost again before long. The shameful state of subjugation in which we find the Israelites in the second year of Saul"s reign (1Sa 13) must have begun under the rule of Samuel.
In his character of Nazarite it is natural to compare Samuel with the predecessor who was, like him, both Nazarite and judge, Samson. The birth of both was promised beforehand. Both were dedicated as Nazarites from their birth; not (according to the common Nazarite vow) for a limited period, but for life. Both, in their way, prevailed. But here the likeness ends. Samson was a Nazarite in the letter, but knew nothing of the Nazarite"s spirit; Samuel was a Nazarite in heart and in life. Samson prevailed by superhuman strength over men"s bodies; Samuel influenced their minds. The work of the one was to destroy and to slay; the work of the other to restore and to create. In Samson we see how a work, most manifestly blessed by God, may be marred by the self will and self indulgence of man; in Samuel we see what divine things can be wrought when a man of great gifts yields himself with self sacrifice and devotion to work under and with the Almighty.
It was the high privilege of Samuel to effect two reunions, impossible to over rate in importance. He reunited the tribes among themselves; he made united Israel once more at one with Jehovah. Under his leadership even Judah and Ephraim work together; at his urgent exhortation "the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only". (1Sa_7:4) Thus what had been the weakness and curse of Israel under the earlier Judges, the political and religious dissolution was for the time at least cured. It was, possibly, to typify this new birth of the nation that Samuel "took a sucking lamb as his first public sacrifice on behalf of the people. It was in contrast to the sacrilegious greed of Hophni and Phineas that he "offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the Lord". (1Sa_7:9) The answer was the victory of Aphek, or Ebenezer, already noticed. In the presence of this prophet, who received such immediate and visible answers to his prayers, reunited Israel knew that it once more had the minister of Jehovah living among them. The dreary interval during which God"s voice had been heard so seldom had passed away, and as in the days of Moses their heavenly King in the person of His prophet was ever present to His people. At Ramah, his birthplace, which he fixed upon as his abode, he "judged Israel all the days of his life," making circuits every year to the sacred centres of Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and thence returning to Ramah. For as yet there was no national centre; each judge fixed his own for himself. Personal and family ties were still paramount; a fixed national metropolis arose first under the monarchy. Thus he continued, "spending and being spent" for Israel, with the care both of the whole Jewish Church and of the whole Jewish nation on his shoulders. As prophet he was the centre and organ of the religious life, as judge he was the centre and organ of the political life of the people. What many popes have claimed to be, what a few of the greatest of them have earnestly striven to be, Samuel, without any self seeking or lust of power, was.
We shall be altogether mistaken if we regard any portion of the Books of Samuel as a biography of the prophet whose name they bear. They are not that any more than the Book of Joshua is a biography of Joshua, or the Book of Judges a series of lives of Jewish leaders. None of the books of the Bible are that. The historical books both of the Old and New Testament are all alike in this, that they are histories not of individuals but of the kingdom of God. Hence, among other characteristics, the comparative neglect of chronology; for it is the exception when chronology has importance in the history of His kingdom, with whom "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day". (2Pe_3:8) We are once more without a date in the sacred narrative, and we once more have a blank which we can fill only tentatively. Just as in the Gospels, "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them," and "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man", (Luk_2:51, Luk_2:52) is all that we know of the Messiah"s life during an interval of about seventeen years, so here, "Samuel judged Israel" covers an interval of perhaps nearly double that duration. We leave him a young man setting up the memorial stone of Ebenezer; and when the narrative begins again he is old and failing in strength, and has made his sons judges to help him. During the interval the political atmosphere has become more and more heavily charged with the desire for a change of government, and a comparatively small thing precipitates it. Joel and Abiah, the two sons of Samuel, are not satisfactory as judges. They are not scandalously wicked, like Hophni and Phinehas, but they are tainted with what has ever been the plague spot in the administration of justice in the East bribery and also with exorbitant usury. "They turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment". (Jos_8:3) Samuel"s uprightness is wantingin his sons, just as Eli"s piety in his, to the sorrow and shame of the parents. And thus the proverb against which Ezekiel protests so emphatically is reversed: "The children eat the sour grape and the fathers" teeth are set on edge." The "eiders of Israel" come to Samuel and formally request him to nominate a king. Whether the judgeship as administered by him had been adequate to their needs or not, certainly it was not at all so as administered by his sons. The old evils would soon be coming back again; the tribes would be falling away into their fatal state of division and isolation, if there were not some central power, which all could respect, to hold them together. Even as it was, the Philistines were still in the land, and had been so for years, because there was no one to take the lead in driving them out. This feeling had been in the air at least since Abimelech, the son of Gideon, made his ill-advised attempt at royalty; (comp. Jud_1:8:22) and it had evidently been increasing. The miscarriages of justice in the hands of Samuel"s sons brought matters to a crisis. The wave of national despair at the loss of the ark, and the still more powerful wave of national enthusiasm at its recovery, which had carried Samuel to the high position in which his great gifts had since then maintained him, had by this time subsided; and popular discontent now made itself formally heard. It had been proved by the sad experience of centuries that the Theocracy under a republican form of government was too high an ideal for the Israelites; experience of so stern a kind must not be thrown away, and the time had now come for a change to a constitution which, if less lofty in conception, would be more beneficial in fact.
"But the thing displeased Samuel." The demand shocked him, not so much because it was a revolution as because it was a revolt; a revolt against Jehovah. The Almighty sanctioned this view; but at the same time instructed Samuel to yield to the demand. He was first to explain to the people what monarchy meant, and then, if they still wished for it, to comply.
The case reminds us of that of Balaam. In both the Almighty grants a petition with which He is displeased; and inasmuch as He granted what was asked, the thing asked for cannot in itself have been wrong. What then displeased Him in the petition? The answer seems to be the same in both cases the spirit which dictated it. It was lawful for Balaam to go to Balak; but to do God"s will, not his own. A rebellious hope of being able to get his own way, at least in part, lurks in Balaam"s mind to the last. It was lawful for Israel to have a king. It had been promised to Abraham that kings should come out of him; (Gen_17:6) Jacob had foretold that the sceptre should not depart from Judah till Shiloh come; (Gen_49:10) and the Law itself expressly provided for the possibility of a regal form of government. (Deu_17:14-20) But the spirit in which it was demanded was faulty. It implied that their invisible King was unable to go out before them and fight their battles, to free them from the Philistines, and protect them against the Amorites; (1Sa_12:12) they must have a visible king. In other words, there was no faith in their request; it was a desire not so much to know God"s will as to obtain their own. The very wording of their reiterated demand seems to show this, "Nay, but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. (1Sa_8:19, 1Sa_8:20) The picture which Samuel faithfully drew of Oriental despotism, as it existed all around them, had an effect the exact opposite of which he had intended. "Nay, flint is the very thing we want; the pomp to dazzle, and the strong hand to rule.
Thus Samuel "stood between the dead and the living," between the dead past, with which all his affections were buried, and the living future, in which hope had scarcely beam to shine. But God"s command was enough for him, little as he might understand it. Had he been "seeking the living among the dead"? and were the people right, after all? Or was God "giving them a king in His anger," as He gave them flesh to eat in the wilderness? At any rate, the course of His prophet was clear: henceforth to devote his thought and care to the moulding of this new form of government, to directing the stream of the current which he was powerless to stem.
There is something inexpressibly touching in Samuel"s complete surrender of the convictions and aspirations of a lifetime. After growing gray in a devoted effort to make the system committed to him meet the needs of the people over whom he ruled, he was suddenly called upon to break with the past, and not only give up his own supremacy in the civil government, but himself inaugurate the system that was to supersede him. It was not merely as if what was nearest and dearest to him was slain before his eyes; it was not merely as if, like Abraham, he was ordered to strike the fatal blow himself. He was called upon to do this and more; to take a stranger to his bosom in the place of the slain, and to foster him as his own son. We shall measure the sacrifice of will better if we compare it with another; and we shall at the same time measure the difference in power between the philosophy of a pious heathen and the faith of a pious Hebrew. When the unwelcome truth was forced upon Cato that the republic to which he had devoted his life was dead, his religion allowed him, and his philosophy counselled him, to die with the political system for which he had striven in vain. And so the last uphohler of the old Roman republic committed suicide at Utica. It never occurred to him that Heaven and his country still claimed services which it was no longer possible to render to a particular system; or that Heaven had better things in store for his country under a new regime. To transfer Iris energies to the side of Caesar in order to make the new regime as beneficial as possible would to Card have been inconceivable. And this is precisely the kind of sacrifice, intensified by being a sacrifice of religious as well as of political conviction, that Samuel without a murmur made. It would take time to work out, but it should be done. There is a bursting, as of heartstrings, a wrench, as of one who is parting from what is dearer than life, in the simple utterance with which the discussion ends: "And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city". (Jos_8:22) There was no power to say more.
THE MONARCHY. THE FIRST KING. SAUL.
It was by a Divine revelation that Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, was pointed out to Samuel as the future captain over Israel, to save the people out of the hand of the Philistines; but we may reverently notice the wisdom of the choice. The danger being from the Philistines and the Ammonites, the king must be from one of the southern tribes. A king from the northern groups would, perhaps, have been negligent of pressure and danger in the south, or at least would have known less well how to deal with it. Of the southern tribes Simeon or Benjamin would be preferable to Judah or Ephraim; for had the first king been taken from either of the two great rival tribes, only too probably the other tribe would have yielded a very imperfect allegiance. As between Simeon and Benjamin, there was not much to recommend the first and a great deal in favour of the second. Of the southern tribes Benjamin was the most central. It contained Bethel, perhaps of all the sanctuaries of Palestine the most ancient; Mizpeh, where the great assemblies of all Israel took place; (Jud_1:10:17 11:11 20:1 1Sa_7:5) and Gibeon, "the great high place." It had had the honour of sheltering the ark at Kirjath-jearim, perhaps also of being the home of Samuel; but the situation of Ramah is uncertain. It was warlike and powerful, quite out of proportion to its members or the size of its territory. The dying patriarch foretold that "Benjamin should ravin as a wolf;" and the way in which it defended itself against the rest of Israel, in vindication of the horrible deed of the men of Gibeah, is one of the most extraordinary things in the military history of the Jews. Among this tribe of warriors Kish, Saul"s father, was a powerful chief; and Saul himself was in stature almost gigantic, with strength and activity equal to his frame. (2Sa_1:23) All these details are very significant, and help us to understand the meaning of God"s dealing with His people in yielding to their importunity, and granting a king. The gift was at once a judgment and a blessing. It punished the people for the wrong spirit in which they had demanded a king, and at the same time disciplined them for the future, so that when a worthy king was found, a people worthy of him was ready. In some sense Saul was the chosen of God, in the fullest sense he was not. God pointed him out to Samuel as the future king; not, however, as being His own choice, (1Sa_15:11, 1Sa_15:35) but as being such as the people would desire. David was the "man after God"s own heart;" Saul was rather the man after Israel"s own heart. The Almighty was giving them a king such as they had longed for, the goodliest man in all the land; perhaps to show them that, although when such men have His blessing they succeed, yet without it they are powerless as the smallest child, whether against His friends or His enemies. Saul might he "swifter than an eagle, and stronger than a lion; "but when the Lord was no longer with him, "the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
"And it was so, that when he had turned his shoulder (that great shoulder by which he was afterwards so conspicuous) to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart". (Jos_10:9) In other words, like his far greater namesake in the New Testament, Saul was an instance of what we are accustomed to call "sudden conversion." From this, as well as from the expression of astonishment, which has since become a proverb, "Saul also among the prophets!" we gather that in his earlier life he had been by no means a very religious man. In this, as in so much else, Saul was a great contrast to the ruler whom he superseded. From his childhood upwards Samuel had "ministered unto the Lord," and "the Lord had been with him". (Jud_1:3:1, 19) There has been no sudden change, but a steady growth in holiness. Hence the calm steadfastness, the "sweet reasonableness" of all his conduct, even under the gravest provocation. He can be tender, and he can be severe, but he is never fanatical. With Saul it is otherwise. A novice in religion, his spiritual experiences are a series of surprises to him and throw him off his balance. There is excitement and fanaticism in his religion almost from the first; and as he takes little pains to deepen and make sure the change of heart which had been granted to him, what is left of religion in him becomes for the most part superstition mixed with a strong kind of frenzy, which may have been something akin to religious mania. We see the want of judgment and of reasonableness in his "forcing himself" to offer sacrifice, in his ill-advised adjuration, in his sparing the best of the Amalekite spoil for sacrifice, in his fierce extermination of wizards, and in his himself inquiring of the Lord through a witch. His career is a standing warning to those who presume upon great spiritual blessings which they take no pains to appropriate and secure; from. such a one "shall be taken away even that which he hath." So it was with Saul. The modest, retiring conduct which charms us so much at the outset is quite wanting in his later life; instead of it we have his ostentatious triumph over the Amalekites (Agag was spared to grace the procession) and his envy of David"s praises. The clemency which he shows at the outset to the men of Belial, who scoffed at his election, is forgotten in his slaughter of the Gibeonites, (2Sa_21:1) and the savage massacre of the priests with all their families. (1Sa_22:17-19) In this he reminds us of our own King Henry IV The sullen sternness at the close of life is so unlike the bright generosity at the beginning of it. The explanation in both cases is perhaps the same: disease, both of body and mind, coupled with the reproaches of an ill-informed conscience. But, nemo repente turpissimus: almost to the last Saul has his better moments, and in these nothing is more conspicuous than his tenderness for David, whom at other times he had come to regard with frantic hatred. In the whole of the Old Testament there is no biography more tragic: the nearest to it, perhaps, is that of Samson. In both we see the utter wreck of great powers through the indulgence of an unbridled will.
It is a relief to turn from the lurid lights and deepening gloom of Saul"s last years to the last years of the man with whom we have contrasted him. In spite of the bitter trial which the establishment of regal power was to him, and the bitter disappointment which the first king"s recklessness caused him, Samuel remains calm and steadfast to the last; steadfast alike in his loyalty to God, to the heedless king, and to suffering Israel. For a time he shared the supreme power with Saul. (Jos_11:7) After the confirmation of the regal power, in the enthusiasm caused by Saul"s victory over the Ammonites, (Jos_11:14) he made his great testimony before the people (Jos 12), and then seems to have retired somewhat from the conduct of affairs; retaining, but perhaps without being often called upon to exercise, his office as judge, (Jos_7:15) and appearing chiefly in his character as prophet. It is in his character as prophet and as the anointer of David that his importance in the history of the kingdom of God chiefly consists. The first point might have been noticed earlier in the section specially devoted to Samuel; but the second must have remained over until now in order to avoid confusion. To consider the two points together adds to the significance and impressiveness of each; and with them we may bring this section to a close.
As prophet, Samuel has mainly two aspects:
(1) he is the founder of the schools of the prophets;
(2) he is the inspired exponent of the will of God.
(1) Although there had been prophets, and at least one great one before Samuel Moses, Miriam, Balaam, Deborah, and others (Num_11:25 Jud_1:6:8) yet he was the first of the regular succession of prophets, which extends throughout the whole period of monarchy. St. Peter seems to express this fact in his address to the people in Solomon"s Porch, "All the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after". (Act_3:24) Henceforth we begin to read of those societies called the "company of the prophets," and the "sons of the prophets", (1Sa_10:5, 1Sa_10:10, etc.) over which Samuel presided. (Jud_1:19:20) These schools, in which sacred dance and music, both vocal and instrumental, were studied, together with the law and prophetic utterances, have been compared with mediaeval universities. Their appearance precisely at this time, and their having their first seat in Ramah, Samuel"s own dwelling place, leaves little doubt that he was the founder of them. No one more fitted to found them could have arisen, for he had been a prophet from childhood; and this, so far as we know, was true of no other prophet until the time of Isaiah.
(2) The law, in spite of the number of its enactments, could not possibly cover all cases in the infinite complexity and variety of life. Moreover, the law was but imperfectly known, and when known it was often neglected. Hence there was abundant of room, side by side with the law, for an authoritative statement of the Divine will; and indeed, in the numerous crises through which the Chosen People had to pass, there was a crying need from time to time for such a statement. To make it, to interpret God"s dealings to man, to declare His counsels, to exhort and warn in His name, were the functions of the prophet. The law might instruct them about sacrifices, and purifications, and the elements of justice and charity; but it required the trumpet voice of the prophet to remind king and people alike that an obedient spirit is better than sacrifice, (1Sa_15:22) and that what the Lord requires is not a self-satisfied conformity with written enactments, "but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God". (Mic_6:8) The eternal principles of right and wrong, the unwritten law of God, these are the subjects of the prophet"s utterance from Samuel to Malachi.
The Christian poet Keble ("Christian Year," Second Sunday after Easter) longs for "a sculptor"s hand" to set forth in stone the wild figure of Balaam uttering his compulsory blessing over Israel. A subject that might make one yearn for a painter"s skill is that of the aged Samuel uttering his sorrowful denunciation of the king that he had himself anointed. The long, flowing locks, across which no razor had passed, now snow white with age, the spare, austere figure, the judge"s bearing, the prophet"s eye, the long, flowing mantle, by which Saul tried to stay him, and by which he recognised his apparition on the eve of his own death; all these form a picture, the majesty of which, if we cannot see it for ourselves, we gather from the exclamation of the woman of Endor, "I see a god ascending out of the earth". (1Sa_28:13) To her the form seems superhuman and Divine.
It remains to notice Samuel as the anointer of his still greater successor, David. This is his importance in the long prelude to the kingdom of the Messiah; he is the "spiritual father" of the greatest of the Messiah"s progenitors. He not only inaugurated the monarchy which typified Christ"s kingdom, but he lived to supersede the first unworthy king and to elect the man after God"s own heart, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the sweet Psalmist of Israel. Both the people"s king and the Lord"s king receive their consecration from his hand; and, therefore, whether we trace the kingdom of Israel to the beginning of the monarchy, or the royal line of Christ to the beginning of its royalty, we come to Samuel as the vicegerent of Jehovah in instituting it. But this shows that, great as Samuel is in himself (and he is one of the grandest figures in the Old Testament), yet in his chief aspect his greatness is relative. He is great chiefly because he prepares the way for David, just as the Baptist is great chiefly because he prepares the way for Christ. Thus we see that the arrangement and division of the Books of Samuel are fully justified. Eli and Samuel are too closely connected to be severed, and as Samuel"s place in the history is that of the inaugurator of the kingdom and the anointer of David as king, it follows that the notices of Eli and Samuel must come as a prelude to the history of the Kings rather than as a conclusion to the history of the Judges. This fact will also explain the omission of nearly the whole of Saul"s reign except the beginning and end of it. It is immaterial to the history of the kingdom of God.
"And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah". (1Sa_25:1) Such is the simple but pregnant account of the end of the grandest figure in Jewish history from the conquest to the captivity. All the Israelites were gathered together," a fact to which the narrator a second time directs our attention. "Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city". (1Sa_28:3) With one voice they had responded to his challenge respecting his integrity"; (Jos_12:5) with one voice they had all entreated him to pray for them, when he brought home to them their sins in demanding a king; (Jos_12:19) and now with one voice they lamented him, and sent representatives from all parts of the land to pay the last tribute of respect to him. Ramah, his birthplace and his dwelling place, became his tomb; but inasmuch as the site of Ramah remains unknown, it may be said of him, as was said of Moses, "No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
THE FIRST KING OF THE LINE OF JUDAH. DAVID.
We once more have to admire the infinite variety of Scripture. It has been noticed as one of the various ways in which "the Spirit bloweth where it listeth, that we have this wonderful variety in the Bible. Had the Bible (which, be it remembered, is an inspired library rather than an inspired book) been put together by men, no matter how learned and holy, this variety would have been wanting. We should have had a more or less useful and edifying, but probably more rather than less insipid, volume, suited at best to the needs of the generation in which its compilers lived, and probably of only a limited portion of that. Instead of this, we have, both in form and in matter, a many sidedness and variety of which the world has never wearied, and in which every person can find something to delight his taste, and every soul something to satisfy its needs. Side by side with the stormy and blood-stained pictures of the Book of Judges we have had the bright oasis of the Book of Ruth; the vile conduct of the sons of Eli is narrated in the same chapter with the sweet innocence of the child Samuel; and here, as the reign of Saul darkens through his withdrawing more and more from God, and God at last withdrawing His Spirit from him, we have bright lights constantly breaking in from the life of the young son of Jesse. His guileless youth, the gloomy king"s love for him, never quite quenched even in Saul"s darkest days (1Sa_26:25) the touching friendship with his persecutor"s son, the exquisite lament over Saul and Jonathan, all these things are a relief and a refreshment in the midst of such scenes as Saul"s bloodthirsty hunt after David (madness, as often, turning love into hate), the massacre of the priests, the night visit to Endor, the suicide on Mount Gilboa.
In treating of David in a summary of the present kind, the difficulty is to keep within bounds, so rich are our materials. The age of David seems to have been recognised almost at once by the Jews themselves as the grandest epoch that the nation has as yet known; as we can now see that it has never since been surpassed. Hence the record of it has been preserved with a fulness of detail found nowhere else in the historical books of the Bible. The narrators pour forth their knowledge with a buoyant exuberance that is never weary and has no fear of wearying others. Everything is of interest that belongs to that glorious time; every one is of importance whose fortunes are entwined with the career of that glorious king. Hence we have a full account, not merely (as in the case of Saul) of the opening and close of his reign, but of the whole of it. Hence also we have (what is wholly wanting in the history of Saul) a very vivid account of a great deal of David"s life previous to his ascending the throne. And it is probably owing to the fact that the earlier portion of David"s life is so much bound up with the latter days of Saul, that we know as much as we do about those gloomy days. They derive their importance not from the reigning, but from the future king. And it is not only that our materials respecting this period as a whole are specially full; our means of knowing the central figure of it are in the Old Testament unique. As in the case of St. Paid, and to a much more limited extent of St. Peter and St. John, "we have the advantage of comparing a detailed narrative of his life with undoubted works of his own composition; and the combined result is a knowledge of his personal character, such as we probably possess of no historical personage before the Christian era, with the exception of Cicero, and perhaps of Caesar" (Stanley). Plato and Aristotle, like St. John, we know more from their own writings than from what others have written about them; and, if the choice had to be made in the case of David, it is the Psalms that we should keep while we let the history go. In them we have the outpourings of his spirit and the secret workings of his soul, the key not only to that age and that reign, but to the human heart throughout all ages. But God"s providence has preserved both for us; and we have the rare privilege of comparing the picture unconsciously drawn by himself in his songs with that which the native historians give us of him. Thus we are able to penetrate to the springs of the actions which they record, and also to judge how the events in which he shared told on that noble and tender spirit.
As in the case of Said, the anointing of the future king is preceded by a sacrificial feast. And here we once more have an opportunity of observing how, in spite of their frequent aberrations into idolatry, and their constant neglect or ignorance of God and His law, the Israelites ever remained a religious people at heart. In their hour of darkest need they ever "cried unto the Lord," and in their victories they thanked Him. Trouble and blessing alike are recognised as coming from His hand. A summons to a great sacrifice is never made in vain; and although the sanctuary at Shiloh is in ruins, and the ark has no proper home, yet the worship of God continues at local centres and in the family circle. It is in the complete family circle at Bethlehem, gathered together for an act of solemn worship, rendered specially solemn by the unexpected presence of the prophet, that we are first introduced to the future king. His name (David=beloved) may perhaps indicate that, like Joseph, he was his father"s darling. Certainly, like Joseph, he seems to have been estranged from his brethren: (1Sa_17:28) and in the solitary life which he lived, tending the flocks apart from them, much of the foundation of his future life was laid. The impress which this period left upon his mind is clearly traceable in the Psalms (8, 19., 23., 29., 78:70, 72, etc.); and the devotion with which he guarded his sheep at the risk of his own life (1Sa_17:34, 1Sa_17:35) was an earnest of the self-sacrificing spirit in which he would rule over Israel.
It would seem as if David himself remained in ignorance of the meaning of his anointing by Samuel. No explanation is recorded, and no signs are given, as there were to Saul, to confirm the anointing. When the young Psalmist was summoned to exercise his skill in music on the vexed spirit of the king, he probably never dreamed that he was to succeed him; and when he went out to risk his life against the giant of Garb, he knew not that he was risking his own kingdom along with it. Still less did Saul know that the stripling before him was his successor; at Samuel"s entreaty that had carefully been avoided. (Jos_16:2) And so much had his mental depression and temporary derangement affected Saul"s faculties, that on the battlefield of Ephesdammim he did not recognise the skilful young harper in the slayer of Goliath.
"David lost nothing by his encounter with the giant, not even his temper" (Jacox). Let those who think this latter point small praise consider what a trial it is to a high-spirited young man, conscious of strength and activity, to be twitted with his youthfulness as a boy unworthy of notice. He lost nothing, but he gained much; he gained his entrance into an entirely new sphere of life, which was to be his second school of preparation for the throne. The victory over the giant was thus a crisis in his life; it "took him away from the sheepfolds" and introduced him to court life.
His character suffered nothing in consequence; on the contrary, it developed rapidly. His promotion was rapid, but it did not turn his head. He became the king"s armour bearer, the bosom friend of the king"s son, the accepted lover of the king"s daughter. In the midst of this success, jealousy of his praises, combining with Saul"s mental derangement, turned the favour of the king into hatred. Henceforth David"s position became one of the utmost delicacy. It was scarcely possible to be loyal at once to Saul, to Michal, and to Jonathan. But David, who as a lad had proved himself to be "prudent in matters", (1Sa_16:18) in this difficult position also "behaved himself wisely in all his ways". (1Sa_18:14) He won Michal"s hand, he retained the love of Jonathan, and he escaped the murderous frenzy of Saul.
He had yet another school to go through before his education for the leadership of God"s people was complete the school of adversity. The faithful shepherd had become the prudent courtier: he must now become the vigilant, active, enduring outlaw. This phase of life helps still further to ripen his character, specially in two directions chivalrous generosity and reliance upon God. His harp accompanies him here also, and no doubt shared many a sad hour in the eaves of Engedi, or on the slopes of Mahanaim. There is the true spirit of chivalry in his sparing Saul"s life twice when others would have taken it, in his readiness for reconciliation, in his burning protestation of his own innocence. "Jehovah, my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; yea, rather, I have delivered him that without cause is my enemy. Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and make my glory abide in the dust". (Psa_7:3-5) The same psalm opens with a declaration of trust in God: "Jehovah, my God, in Thee have I found my refuge." The hunted outcast, seeking shelter among the crags and rocks, and sometimes only escaping through his nimbleness and fleetness of foot, sings how Jehovah had "made his feet like hinds" feet, and set him on His high places". (Psa_18:33) Jehovah is his "rock," his mountain fastness, where he is safe; (Psa_18:1, Psa_18:2, Psa_18:30, Psa_18:31, 46 62:2, 6, 7) "His right hand holds him up;" "He makes room for his steps under him, that his ankles do not slip." Such passages might be multiplied largely. And here we may remark two things with regard to the Psalms, which tell of his sufferings and persecutions, whether at this period or later on in his life.
(1) They contain imprecations on his enemies painful to read, so wanting is the spirit of forgiveness, the spirit that prays for enemies. This is the particular in which the Psalms fall so immeasurably short of the Gospel. Otherwise in reading them, one sometimes feels inclined to ask, What has Christianity to give that is higher and nobler than this?
(2) On the other hand, his enemies are never named: the denunciations are general, not special. There is no mention of Saul, or Doeg, or Ahitophel, or Shimei. And in this also, no doubt, he was ruled by the Spirit. Songs that were to be the heritage of religious souls throughout all ages could not be matted by personal animosities. And words which were launched against the head of David"s persecutors, Christians may utter as against the opponents of Christ.
The moment when the crown passes into the hands of the man who had gone through this long and diversified training for it, is one of the strangest complication. David, with a formidable force of 600 men, has crossed the border, and taken service under the Philistine king, Achish. Ziklag is granted him for an abode, and he remains there sixteen months. And it is significant of the national feeling respecting him, that a contingent from Saul"s own tribe comes over to him here. (1Ch_12:1-7) But the lords of the Philistines did not share Achish"s trust in David, and would not let him march with them against Israel. Thus David was spared the misery of having to choose between faithlessness to Achish or treason against Saul. He returned to find that Ziklag had been plundered by the Amalekites, and while he was taking vengeance on them, and recovering captives and spoil, the fatal battle of Gilboa was fought, and the first news that greeted him after his return to Ziklag was that Israel had been defeated by the Philistines, and that Saul and Jonathan were slain. The noble ode which celebrates their memory, royal in its generosity, in its tenderness, and in the beauty of its language, is in every way worthy of its subject and its composer. Perhaps there is no finer elegy in any language. Its echoes had scarcely died away, when its author was called upon to fill the vacant throne.
It augurs well for the new king"s rule that he is no way eager to seize the crown. The kingdom sought him, not he the kingdom. "For at that time day by day there came to David to help him, until it was a great host, like the host of God". (1Ch_12:22) But not until "the Lord said unto him, Go up", (2Sa_2:1) did David cross over into Judah, and by His special direction fix his seat at Hebron, the ancient sacred city of the tribe, the tomb of the patriarchs, and the lot of Caleb. Here he was anointed king, and reigned over Judah for seven and a half years. It shows how entirely he submitted himself to the Divine guidance, that he made no attempt to grasp the rest of the kingdom, and did not oppose the setting up of Ishbosheth as Saul"s successor, but waited for God to give him the kingdom in His own way. In this respect David is a striking contrast to Jeroboam and Jehu.
The victory of the Philistines had given them the central part of western Palestine, and they very possibly conquered the north also: but in any case the north was cut off from David"s kingdom in the south. In eastern Palestine, Abner, Saul"s cousin and commander in chief, seems to have established himself with Ishbosheth, the only surviving son of Saul. Gradually they won back territory from the Philistines; then Ishbosheth was proclaimed king, and by the end of five years was recognised as king by all but Judah. He, like David, chose an ancient and sacred city as his seat of government Mahanaim, on the borders of Gad and Manasseh. The war between the rival kings was none of David"s seeking. Abner provoked it by trying to gain possession of "Gibeah of Saul" in Benjamin, as a capital for his puppet, Ishbosheth, no doubt with a view to ousting David, and ruling over all Israel in Ishbosheth"s name. This bold stroke proved the ruin of himself and the house of Saul: and after his and Ishbosheth"s death (murders of which David was wholly guiltless, and which he publicly condemned) there was no other claimant to the throne. David was rewarded for his trust in God"s promises, and for his chivalrous conduct towards the house of Saul, and became undisputed king of all Israel.
During this brief period of limited rule over Judah, amid much that is promising, we notice the beginning of two evils which are among the curses of Oriental monarchies.
(1) In order to strengthen himself, he seeks or accepts connexions by marriage with various powerful families. To Ahinoam and Abigail he adds four new wives, and as a hold upon Abner, when he was willing to desert Ishbosheth, he demanded back Michal, whom Saul had taken from him. Thus a harem, with all its baneful influences, was begun.
(2) Being not yet firmly established, he was obliged to humour his powerful relatives. Men whom he could not do without, and whom he could only imperfectly control, acted without consulting him, or in defiance of his wishes. His passionate lament over the murder of Abner, which he could neither prevent nor punish, is the beginning of an enforced nepotism, which throws a shade over the whole of David"s reign.
All Israel now recognised the claims of the man, who, even in Saul"s lifetime, lind ever led them to victory, and to whom Jehovah had said, "Thou shalt feed My people Israel:" and he was anointed king in Hebron. He belonged to them all, not to Judah alone. "All the tribes of Israel came to David and spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh". (2Sa_5:1) There had been no such unanimity since the burial of Samuel, and it anticipates the feeling when in after years David was recalled to the throne: "We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye". (2Sa_19:43) Seldom, perhaps, has a king been welcomed with greater enthusiasm than David. For long it had been true of him, that "whatever the King did, pleased all the people", (2Sa_3:36) and it remained true of him through nearly the whole of his reign. He was "as an angel of God" (2Sa_14:17, 20 19:27) in their eyes; he bowed their hearts "as the heart of one man"; (2Sa_19:14) he was "the light of Israel". (2Sa_21:17) And the enthusiasm was well founded. Like the greatest of our own kings, Edward I, David came to the throne thoroughly understanding and thoroughly disciplined for the task that lay before him. In both cases there was a kingdom needing an adequate organization for preserving internal unity and effective means of national defence. Both rulers had learned much from the errors of the previous reign; and both knew that only with the sympathy and help of the people whom they ruled could the great needs of the kingdom be supplied. Both had enlarged their political and military experience by service abroad; and David probably learned much from the excellent military system of the Philistines. One more point of resemblance, and it is the highest of all. Both kings were qualified for doing far more than restoring unity and energy to a disorganized and disheartened people: they were fit and ready to start then on a new career of order, and hope, and progress.
Thus, without any advantage of birth, without any dexterous scheming or violent revolution, in ripeness of mind and body, at the moment when he was most needed, the greatest man of the age reached the highest position in it, the headship over the whole of God"s Chosen People. The shepherd lad, musician, courtier, warrior, poet, outlaw, and tribal king, had reached a pinnacle to which no one had risen before, the throne of united Israel. He had experienced the trials of solitary watching in the wilderness, of jealousies and plots at court of being hunted like a wild beast in the mountains, of being an exile in the land of Israel"s deadliest enemies. There remained the severest trial of all, the possession of supreme power. It remained to be seen whether one who had met with such transcendent success would now lose his reliance on Jehovah, and begin to trust in himself.
His first exploit is strong proof both of his sagacity and of his vigour. As king of all Israel he could not remain at Hebron, it was not nearly central enough. On the other hand, it would have affronted his own tribe to seek a capital entirely away from Judah. Therefore some strong place on the northern frontier of Judah was wanted. Jebus fulfilled all these conditions, and the fact that the Canaanites had been able to maintain themselves there for centuries, was evidence of its value as stronghold; indeed, they scoffed at the notion of its being taken. Joab won the post of commander in chief by being the first to scale the rocky side of the fortress, a fact of no small influence on David"s reign; and then the citadel of Zion, now first named in history, was soon taken.
Here David established his seat of government, and centuries of history have ratified the wisdom of his choice. The creation of the national capital is therefore contemporaneous with the establishment of the monarchy in its complete form, and both are the work of David. That it should be called "the city of David" was doubly justified by his having captured it, and by the use he made of it. It commands the country as no other place does; for it stands on the broadest ridge of the network of hills which runs through Palestine, from Carmel to the wilderness of Pavan, forming the watershed between the Great Sea and the Jordan. Strategically its position is very strong. Most of the approaches to it are too intricate and precipitous for large armies; and the one that is least so, the one that has almost invariably been used by hostile armies, is very circuitous from Jaffa and Lydda, over the pass of the Beth-horons to Gibeon, and thence over the hills to the north side of Jerusalem. History shows that the armies of Egypt and Assyria often marched by along the plain, and sometimes fought there, without in any way interfering with Jerusalem.
The moral effect of the capture was immense. All the surrounding nations waited in suspense to see what the conqueror would attempt next. The effect was felt as far as Tyre, for Hiram sends workmen and cedar wood to build a palace for David in his new capital. The palace was built; and we once more see the weakness of frail humanity in David"s great work, in his violating the law, (Deu_17:17) by multiplying wives to himself; though he never seems to have done as Solomon did to his own ruin, take wives from heathen nations. The Philistines also were moved by the capture of Zion, and did not wait to be attacked, but invaded the land and were twice utterly routed. The friendship of Hiram and the defeat of the Philistines secured peace for Israel along the whole of the seacoast.
Thus far David had been urged on by political necessity: it was impossible to undertake higher work till a seat of government was established and a prospect of peace secured. But his heart had been elsewhere throughout. For fifty years or more the ark of God had been homeless. It was still in its temporary resting place at Kirjath-jearim; it must be brought to Zion and a new house built for it. First the Philistines" inroad and then the death of Uzzah a terrible warning to those who irreverently seek God "not after the due order" (1Ch_15:13) caused delay: but at last the half of David"s wish was accomplished, and the ark was brought up to Jerusalem; the other half, of building a house for it, he was commanded to leave for his son. It is one more proof of the irreligiousness of the court of Saul that his daughter Michal considered the prominent part which David took on this joyous occasion nothing but a shameful lowering of the royal dignity. Her father had known how to keep priests in order, and now her husband was making himself as one of them: and "she despised him in her heart.
Various psalms bear strong evidence of having been composed for this great festival. Chief of these are Ps 132 Ps 68, and Ps 24; to which Ps 15 Ps 101, and perhaps Ps 29 and Ps 30, may be added.
The seat of empire and the seat of worship being thus secured and united, David proceeds to consolidate his kingdom both within and without. The details of his military and civil administration, and of his religious institutions and successful wars, are told us at great length. His victories, celebrated in Psalms 60 and Ps 105, carried the frontier of Israel to its furthest limits (limits maintained for little over half a century), and then the brightest portion of his reign is over. His great sin, the adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah, follows and clouds the rest of his life.
Immediately before it we have a fair spot to rest on for a moment, his tender kindness to Mephibosheth, the crippled son, and apparently the only child of Jonathan. Now that the most pressing work of his reign is completed, David remembers his compact with Jonathan, that "Jehovah should be between them and their seed forever," and that "he would not cut off his kindness from Jonathan"s house forever". (1Sa_20:42, 1Sa_20:15) He makes inquiries for the descendants of Saul, hears of Mephibosheth from the crafty Ziba, and generously provides for the depressed and timid prince, who, but for his grandfather"s sins, might have been king of Israel. It is the last unclouded spot in David"s life.
sure your sin shall find you out". (Num_32:28) The rest of the life of David is one long commentary on the solemn text. In tragic horror and pathos, in psychological interest, in spiritual instruction, the history of David"s sin and repentance and punishment has scarcely an equal. Lust and murder, the common sins of Oriental despotism, may be traced in part at least as the natural outcome of what has already been pointed out as the plague spot in David"s royal state. No consideration of prudence, or honour, or gratitude, no fear of God hold"s him back. Bathsheba was the granddaughter of Ahitophel his counsellor; Uriah was one of his "thirty mighty men," and was at that very moment risking his life for David. It seems to show how prosperity and luxury had weakened David"s character that he remained indolently at Jerusalem while all Israel was in arms against Ammon and Syria. The sending of the ark to Rabbah seems also to indicate a change for the worse. The king"s attempt to cover his crime shows the nobility of Uriah"s character, and as a reward for it he is made to carry his own death warrant back to the war. The atrocity of David"s plot is scarcely excused by the fact that a similar one had been laid against himself by Saul; and the empty commonplace with which David answers the message that there has been heavy loss of life, including that of Uriah, (2Sa_11:25) is evidence of the slumber in which his conscience is lulled. But there was soon to be a full awakening.
It is one more evidence how morally sound the Chosen People were at heart, that the sin even of one so exalted, of one so dear to them, was not in any way palliated wherever it became known; and it is proof of how truly, in spite of it all, he was "a man after God"s own heart," that he made no attempt to excuse if, but at once admitted it in its true colours. The noble courage of Nathan in rebuking his sovereign is equalled by the nobility of David"s complete confession and submission. O felix culpa!" one is almost tempted to exclaim, when one reads the history of David"s penitence, and still more when one appropriates the passionate outpouring of remorseful struggle, of sense of guilt, of sorrow for sin, of yearning for purity, of submission to God, of joy for the peace of reconciliation, in which he has given a voice to the penitence of the whole world from that day to this. (Ps 32 and Ps 51)
Sin has three consequences in this world weakening of the sinner"s own character; the force of bad example to others; misery entailed on the sinner and those connected with him. Every one of these can be distinctly traced in the case of David"s sin. For evidence of the first there is the cruelty to the conquered Ammonites, (2Sa_12:31) the leaving Amnon unpunished, and the other great sin of numbering the people; for the second there is the outrage on Tamar, the murder of Amnon, the revolt of Absalom, with the treatment of David"s concubines; for the third there is the death of Bathsheba"s first child, the efficient aid given by her grandfather to Absalom, the immense power over David which complicity with the murder of Uriah gave to the headstrong and impetuous Joab. No one can consider these facts in themselves and in their pregnant consequences, and then think, because of Nathan"s declaration, "The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die," that God spared sin in the man after His own heart. There is no royal road to forgiveness. And if any one thinks that David"s sins are any excuse for his own, let him first try to measure the difference between the Law and the Gospel, and then measure his own by David"s repentance.
It is among the many curses of polygamy that the children of the different wives grow up from the first in an atmosphere of sensual indulgence; secondly, that there is sure to be rivalry between them, and intriguing among their mothers, with a view to their father"s favour and the succession to his property. All this is abundantly illustrated in the history of David"s children, especially of Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah.
Absalom, the Hebrew Alcibiades, beautiful and bad, fascinating in manner and hollow of heart, is the instrument by which the curse pronounced by Nathan was fulfilled, "Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house". (Jos_12:11) The warnings taught by the troubles of Eli and Samuel seem to have been unheeded; for his children also grow up unchastened and unrestrained. It is significant of the corrupt atmosphere of the harem that Tamar thinks that David will consent to an incestuous marriage between her and her half brother. (Jos_13:13) The murder of Aragon, similar to that of Shechem by Simeon and Levi, probably left Absalom eldest son. In the irksome idleness of his enforced exile he conceived bold schemes of self advancement, and after four years of skilful preparation, flung himself into civil war with a light heart. His complete success, especially in Judah, points to some falling off in David"s popularity, the result, perhaps, of his conduct in the Ammonite war, especially in the matter of Uriah. But both Absalom"s success and Absalom"s overthrow were alike full of misery for David; probably the heaviest blows that had ever fallen on him in a long life of adventure and trial. Psalm 4 seems to have been written for the evening, and Psalm 3 for the morning after David"s flight from Absalom; Psalm 42 may possibly refer to the exile beyond Jordan; Psalms 55 and Ps 109 are believed to point to the treachery of Ahitopheh David"s return was marred by an ominous quarrel between Judah and the rest of the tribes. The rebellion lingered on in the north, but was quelled by the vigour of Joab. Once more the kingdom and its troubled king had peace.
We pass to the last period of David"s life. It has only one strongly marked in. cident, and that a sad one, the numbering of the people at the suggestion of Satan, as we are expressly told. (1Ch_21:1) The idea would seem to have arisen from a proud desire to revel in the knowledge of the forces which were at his command, the result of his own new military system. If so, it would be similar to that which brought a judgment on Nebuchadnezzar. "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" (Dan_4:30) The thing was so hateful even to the not too scrupulous Joab, that he left out the tribes of Benjamin and Levi, and would not complete the census. This time David was permitted to choose his own punishment; three years of famine, three months of flight before his enemies, or three days of pestilence. He had already experienced three years" famine in punishment for the "bloody house" of Saul; and three months" flight before Absalom, in punishment for his own sin with Bathsheba. He chose three days of pestilence. And thus, as if to teach us the vanity of all that is mortal because of the taint of sin, this threefold trikumia kakwn , these three triplets of woe form the landmarks in the reign of the greatest king that ever ruled over Israel. The three years" famine had taught that God is "a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children." The three years" flight had shown that God visits the sins of the fathers on the fathers through the children. The three days" pestilence would prove that the sins of a prince may be the scourge of a whole people, that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and that He who could make Israel as the stars of heaven or the sand of the sea for multitude could also unmake the nation with a word.
The rebellion of Adonijah, the eldest surviving son of David, who, with the aid of Joab and Abiathar, tried to secure the throne for himself, troubled the last days of the reign. But the aged king showed that his infirmities had not robbed him of the power to rule. Solomon was solemnly proclaimed king, and the chief conspirators took sanctuary.
The end of this life of almost ceaseless change and eventfulness was one of peace. David gave his last charge to his successor, and then "died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour." It is characteristic of the age rather than of the man that his last recorded words are words of vengeance. We see in this, as already noticed respecting the Psalms, how very far short of the Gospel was the very best that the Law could produce. In sparing Shimei"s life during his own lifetime, David was above the moral level of his age; but with regard to Shimei, as with regard to Joab, he leaves to his son Solomon a legacy of vengeance, as though he repented of his own lofty clemency. It almost shocks us to find the sweet Psalmist of Israel ending his life, not with a Nunc dimittis, but with the charge, "His hoar head bring Thou to the grave with blood.
In the varied elements of Iris life and character there is no one in the whole of the Bible like David. A life teeming with vicissitudes, with romance, with pathos, and those startling changes of fortune which make history so much stranger than fiction. What drama is equal to it for tragic and romantic interest alone, to say nothing of instruction? His character is as varied as his life. It reminds to no small extent of him whose writings in the New Testament hold somewhat the same place as the Psalms in the Old, the Apostle St. John. In both there is all the strength of man with all the tenderness of woman. In both there is the same intensity intensity of action, intensity of thought and word, intensity of love and hate. They could hate with the same fervour that they loved. They abhorred that which was evil in cleaving to that which was good; the one implied the other. But, as we might anticipate from the difference of the dispensations under which they lived, the indignation which St. John feels for the wrong done to his Lord, David often feels for the wrong done to himself. He has strong words, and strong deeds sometimes, for those who treat him ill. With the exception of his dastardly conduct to Uriah there is no meanness about him. There is nobility even in his faults; and certainly his repentance is noble. Is there any one in the whole of the Old Testament of whom we know so much, and yet find so much to admire, and praise, and love? With his chivalry and generosity, with his passionate love for his friend and for his son, with his sweetness and delicacy, his energy and courage, do we not feel him to be a man after man"s own heart as well as after God"s? Whether we take the world"s rough measure and judge him by what he did, or look deeper and judge him by what he was, we must admit that in him we have a king who was at once a true hero and a true saint.
He was buried "in the city of David," i.e. , on Mount Zion, in a tomb which he had probably prepared for himself. Even the site of it is now unknown. But he had reared himself another monument far more lasting in those imperishable hymns which have secured him a memorial in the hearts of all mankind. Of course not all the Psalms are his; perhaps by no means all of those which bear his name. But they are his in spirit, if not in fact: the Divine inspiration flows through him to those who were moved to imitate him. They belong to no Church, eastern or western, not even to Christianity itself, although the Gospel alone can give them their full meaning. They are the possession of the whole human race wherever it knows its God. Since the day on which he gave them to the world, the Psalms of David have never ceased to rise to the eternal throne.
It may be thought that this survey of the life of David is in extent out of all proportion to the remainder of the summary. But the example of Scripture itself would seem to show that this is not so. Whether we regard the influence of David himself upon the people he ruled, or the growth and development of the people under his guidance, or the instruction which his life supplies for each individual soul, or the deep analogies which lie between the history of Israel at this its most glorious period and the history of the Christian Church, the age and reign of David stands alone in the history of Israel. If Samuel had founded a school of prophets, David had founded a school of heroes, a nation of warriors, consecrated, like a great military order, to the work of fighting for the Lord against the heathen, for Him who now first begins to be commonly known as "the Lord of hosts." Coming, like Joan of Arc, from deep pastoral solitudes to take the lead in armies and stand at the right hand of kings, he had reanimated and raised from disgrace to glory a noble but disheartened nation. A man of the people himself, and owing nothing to his birth, he was a living witness to all, that the very highest advancement was possible to every man who worked with the blessing of Jehovah. Thus the whole nation felt itself ennobled in him, and reverenced him with an enthusiastic devotion both on the throne and in his grave. This enthusiasm was not the creation of David: it met him half way, and was the greatest of all his advantages; second only to the aid of Jehovah Himself. Thus he and his people mutually acted and reacted on one another, a type and an earnest of the relations between Christ and His Church. He abode among them, and they were represented and glorified in him, each rendering still further advance more possible for the other. From that uncertain period, which is neither childhood nor manhood, the nation had emerged into the strength and self-possession of the prime of life. How long will it remain there? For the prime of a nation"s life has no necessary limits. If the right conditions are there, the limits may be extended indefinitely. This question will find an answer only too soon in the history of the next reign.
THE LAST KING OF UNITED ISRAEL. SOLOMON.
We pass from the deathbed of King David to a scene of almost dazzling splendour. The few detailed narratives that have come down to us of events in the reiogn of Solomon are enough to show us that: and fresh from the abundance of information preserved for us respecting David, we are perhaps surprised that comparatively so little is told us about the son who succeeded to all, and more than all, His grandeur. The fact of this almost sudden check in the full stream of the history is evidence of one thing at any rate that, whatever may have been the opinion of his own age with regard to Solomon, later generations did not find the picture of his reign so delightful to dwell on as that of his father"s era: and it was they, and not the contemporary writers, who had to decide what should be preserved and what not of the annals of those times. It was pleasant to remember Solomon"s miracles of wisdom, the treasures he accumulated, the splendour of his court, and the extensiveness of his commerce. His temple, his palaces, and his public works remained as lasting evidence of all this magnificence. But at the same time men had come to know by profound experience how dearly the magnificence had been bought. Israel throughout long generations was paying the cost of Solomon"s glory. Limitation of liberty and heavy taxation at the time, followed in the next reign by a permanent schism; this was the heavy price. It might be worth while for Judah and Benjamin, who had this magnificence and its accompanying expenditure in the midst of them, to submit to some loss of freedom and to taxes which came back to them in trade; but what had Ephraim and the other tribes to gain by it all? Moreover, not even in Solomon"s day had the kingdom been preserved in its full integrity. Contrary to the law, (Lev_25:13-34) he had given away a portion of the inheritance of Israel to Hiram, king of Tyre. (1Ki_9:11)
These considerations will explain to us why our materials for the reign of Solomon are comparatively so scanty. No doubt there are higher causes still. In making their compilations the sacred historians were guided to the preservation of what was of permanent value for the history of the kingdom of God. Mere worldly opulence and splendour has little instructiveness about it. A prolonged narrative of Solomon"s magnificence and power would have had scarcely a higher moral value than the "Thousand and One Nights." Enough is told us to enable us to appreciate God"s bounty to the young man who deliberately preferred wisdom to wealth and power, and to see the powerlessness of mere wisdom and culture, even of the highest kind, when dissevered from the fear and love of God, against human passion and human pride. Under Solomon the star of Israel continues still to rise for a time, and under him the zenith of the nation is reached. Yet his reign is not on that account greater than his father"s, which was a continual growth from first to last. On the contrary, it is the lamentable distinction of Solomon"s reign that with him, and largely in consequence of his faults, begins a decline which was never really arrested and which in the end proved fatal. The lesson of his life is to a large extent that of Samson"s and of Saul"s combined: miraculous powers neutralised by self indulgence; great natural gifts rendered baneful by desertion of God. Therefore a few scenes of splendour, the canker, and its consequences, are all that are needed to be told. The remainder, however flattering to himself and his age, has little instruction for us.
Solomon seems to have been one of those men who try to serve God with one hand and themselves with both. The one hand soon becomes weary of its double duty, and the end is devotion to self alone. Unlike his father, he was born in the purple, and had never known the bracing influences of difficulty or adversity. Brought up in the constant society of his mother, of whom we know much evil and no good, and in expectation of a glorious crown, we can hardly wonder that his character does not bear the strain of the possession of enormous wealth and power. Nothing had occurred to prove to him his entire dependence on God. His prayer at Gibeon, high and noble as it was, and "pleasing to the Lord," was not the highest. It is the prayer of the Stoic rather than of the saint, of one who seeks to be self sufficing rather than of one who feels that dependence on God is his only hope and stay. What would David have asked for had he had the choice? His psalms leave the answer scarcely doubtful: to be delivered from his transgressions, to have a clean heart and a right spirit, to hold fast by God; or, in one word, holiness. The widest range of wisdom without that was worthless, not only in God"s eyes but for bringing peace to the heart. This truth, Solomon, with all his varied knowledge, did not know; and had to learn it through a dreary round of the bitterest disappointments.
Solomon began well. He "loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father", (1Ki_3:3) and almost his first care is to accomplish the desire, inherited from his father, of building "the house of the Lord," for which David had long since been collecting materials. But even at this early date, when all seems so fair, the germs of evil are not wanting. There is something astounding in finding that one of his first acts was to seek a wife out of Egypt, the house of bondage. Since the Israelites "spoiled the Egyptians" there had been no intercourse between the two nations. Solomon"s marriage was probably a diplomatic one, to gain the aid of Pharaoh against Edom, or at least to withheld him from helping Edom. It was the beginning of those many unions with strange wives who in the end led him into abominable idolatries. But he is nowhere said to have built altars to any Egyptian god, so that we may perhaps conclude that Pharaoh"s daughter became a proselyte, and that for this reason the marriage was not specially condemned. But the connexion with Egypt, if it did not lead to idolatry, led to another violation of the law. In direct contravention of Deu_17:17, Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt. (1Ki_10:28) Again, the oppressive slave work to which not only the suriving Canaanites, but even free born Israelites, were subjected in building the temple (1Ki_5:18, 1Ki_5:14) is an unpleasing feature in the work. The prophecy of Samuel (1Sa_8:16) was being abundantly fulfilled. It has been suggested that it was partly in order to keep out of sight and hearing the misery that he was causing to these huge gangs of enslaved Israelites and Canaanites, that Solomon had everything made ready for the temple before it was brought to the site, so that it could be put up there with little trouble and noise. Be this as it may, it is not improbable that in the superb magnificence with which he adorned the house of God, Solomon found salve for a conscience disquieted by his luxurious self indulgence. If the Lord had a large share of his opulence he might safely enjoy the rest.
In his temple, and in the prayer with which he dedicates it, Solomon appears as a man with an ideal far above that which he actually practised. There is no harm in this; nay, it is what must be the case with all ideals, especially with ideals in religion. The fatal thing is when there is no effort to make the practice approach to the ideal; when a man rests content with having set up a high standard which he does not strive to reach. This comes to be the case with Solomon; and the solemn warning which he receives immediately after the dedication leads us to suppose that something is amiss already. (1Ki_9:6-9) It would be startling to turn from the eighth to the eleventh chapter of the First Book of Kings, if such inconsistencies and fans Were not among the common experiences of life. First, the multitude of sacrifices, and then the multitude of wives: first, the temple to the Lord God of Israel, and then the high places for Chemosh and Molech and Ashtoreth. The God of light, and love, and purity is supplanted in the heart of the wisest of men by the deities of darkness, and cruelty, and lust. Whether the idolatry, which Solomon certainly aided and appears to have shared, was the result of an unwise toleration; or of weak indulgence to his wives; or of his great knowledge of nature, leading him to seek forbidden ways into her mysteries; or of his foreign policy, which might seem to make the permission and even support of foreign religions a political necessity; or of several of these combined we cannot decide. Certain it is that he was dragged down from the high spiritual level on which he started, and that the nation was dragged down with him. In David"s time monarch and people mutually helped one another to rise. In the latter half of Solomon"s reign the reverse is the case, although for awhile the dazzling brilliancy of the age prevented the germs of evil from being seen. Long peace gave a sense of security; increased commerce encouraged luxury and indolence; and there was the king himself showing them the way to enjoy them. They were forgetting Him who had given and could take away; and this was in itself a half way house to idolatry, with which their foreign trade was again making them dangerously familiar. While this was true of the more prosperous half of the people, the rest were being ground down by Solomon"s oppressive taxation and task work, which were preparing a seething mass of discontent ready to boil up at any moment. Thus David"s nation of devoted warriors was on the road to becoming a nation of mingled voluptuaries and serfs. And if Solomon did not raise his people to a higher moral level, but rather the contrary, neither did his people help to raise him. They did not meet him, as they did his father, with a warm and enthusiastic sympathy. There is enthusiasm about him at first, but it is for his father"s son rather than for himself; and if for himself, rather for the beauty of the young king"s form, and for the intellectual delight afforded by his conversation, than for what he did with them and for them. He was not, as David had been, one of themselves. They were not so sure of his sympathy, of his being able to understand them. Above all, it would seem as if he had little hold over their moral and spiritual life. Of his thousand and five songs, (1Ki_4:32) not one gained hold enough on the people to live; and if they expressed the life which is lamented over in the Book of Ecclesiastes, it is as well that they have perished. Of the Psalms, only two by the Hebrew titles bear his name (Ps 72 and Ps 127), and of these the former is possibly, and the latter probably, not his. Thus what was one of the strongest links between David and his people was altogether wanting in the case of Solomon.
But there was not merely an increasing want of union between the sovereign and the nation, there was also an increase in the old evil of disunion in the nation itself. Its chief bond of union lay in its religion; and through the royal tolerance and support of idolatry the religious tie was being rapidly weakened. Would religious men make pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the feasts only to be scandalized when they arrived there by high places for Chemosh and for Molech, "on the hill that is before Jerusalem," within sight of the temple itself? (1Ki_11:7) And if Jerusalem was an offence to them, why should it remain their capital? And what offended religious Israelites did not attract others; for those who lapsed into idolatry could have their own impious altars at home. There was no need to go to the Mount of Olives to worship. Thus for all classes, religious and irreligious alike, the tie that bound them to the capital was fast becoming weaker, and in the next reign it snapped altogether.
Of Solomon"s last days and death we know nothing. If the traditional belief, that the Book of Ecclesiastes is his confession of the vanity of his life, is correct, we are still far from knowing in what state he died. The book itself is an enigma. But whatever be the interpretation of its half melancholy, half scornful estimate of life in general, and specially of the Preacher"s own, how different is it from the fifty-first Psalm! In his persistency in sin and in the gloominess of his repentance Solomon is utterly unlike his father. There is a calculating reflectiveness about the Preacher"s recantation, as apparently also about his sins, which forms the strongest contrast to the passionate yearning with which the Psalmist flings himself and his sin before Jehovah, and leaves all to Him.
This, then, is the mournful conclusion: the wisest, wealthiest, and most powerful king of the noblest nation at that time the only noble nation in the world, at the most glorious period of its career, writes this at the end of a long life and reign as the sum of his experiences: "All is vanity.
Before passing on, let us remind ourselves that we are following not so much the history of a people or the lives of individuals, as the history of a religion, the history of the kingdom of God. The history of the people and of its leaders is real and not fictitious; but at the same time it is typical, and was divinely ordered throughout to be so. The history of the people shows forth in a figure the mysteries of redemption, and both in figure and in fact God"s moral government of the world. The lives of the representative leaders set forth in a figure each some fragment of the life of Christ. The Messiah is Priest, Prophet, and King. All these great offices of the Theocracy find their highest representative in Him: all, therefore, who held these offices under the law were each in their measure types of the Messiah. In the supreme rulers of united Israel we have just had examples of all three: Eli the priest, Samuel the prophet, Saul, or David, or Solomon the king.
The high priest was the representative of the people before God, the intercessor between God and man. He went into the holy of holies once a year to make atonement for sin with blood. But the holy of holies was no perfect sanctuary, for it was made with hands. The atonement was no perfect atonement, for it needed to be repeated. The sacrifice was no perfect sacrifice, for it was the blood of a brute beast, which can never take away sins. Above all, the priest was no perfect priest, for he had to make atonement for his own sins before he interceded for the people. All the ordinances respecting him and his sacrifice proved to the people that though he was divinely ordained, and a true type, yet he was no more than a type. They must look elsewhere for the true Priest, and true Intercessor, and true Representative, who would offer one perfect sacrifice forever putting away sin.
As the priest represented man to God, so the prophet represented God to man. He came to declare God"s will: His commands, His promises, His judgments. He came to denounce the priest, who forgot his high calling and profaned the sanctuary or allowed others to do so; to warn the people who forgot that the Lord was their King, and that the Lord was their God; to rebuke the king who forgot that he had to obey as well as to rule, and that for him too there were punishments for wrongdoing. But the prophet, though he had a Divine commission, which was often attested by miraculous powers, was manifestly not perfect. He declared at best only a fragment of the truth; and he often uttered that fragment so dimly and obscurely that it was hard to gather his meaning; sometimes he himself did not understand the meaning of his own message. Therefore he too, though a true prophet sent from God, was but a type and an earnest of the perfect Prophet, who should not only teach what was true, but Himself be the Truth; who should not only declare God"s word, but Himself be the Word of God.
But, while the prophet declared God"s will, he had no power to enforce it: he did net rule, he did not govern. There needed, therefore, to be yet another representative of God in the Theocracy; one who should represent not so much His will as His authority. This was the king, the vicegerent of Jehovah, "the Lord"s anointed." He represented "the Lord of Hosts" as "Captain over His people"; (1Sa_9:16 1Sa_10:1 1Sa_13:14 2Ki_20:5) he represented "the Judge of all the earth," as appointed to execute judgment anal justice between man and man. But in giving this lofty type of royalty to His people, God showed to them that it was a type and no more: for their captain could not promise them victory, and their judge was not infallible in judgment. The perfect King, the great Anointed One, was still to come. (See Perowne "On the Psalms," 1. pp. 4952.)
And if it was clear from the very nature of the offices themselves that they were only types of something more perfect, still more clear did this become when the people had experience of the men who held the offices. Each of these offices had in turn come to be supreme in Israel; and therefore it might perhaps have seemed as if the great representative of each had come. But it was impossible that Eli, whose weak fondness had tolerated the enormities of his sons, and who had himself been rebuked for his shortcomings, could be the perfect priest. It was impossible that Samuel, who also was discredited in his sons, who feared to do God"s bidding lest Saul should kill him, who mistook Eliab for the Lord"s anointed, who was bidden to set another in his own place as supreme ruler, could be the perfect prophet. It was impossible that Saul the strong, or David the well beloved, or Solomon the magnificent, could be the perfect king; for was it not also true to call them, Saul the suicide, David the adulterer and murderer, Solomon the idolater? From the men themselves, therefore, as well as from the nature of the offices which they held, it was manifest to all that the true Priest, Prophet, and King was not yet given to israel. It was their duty still to watch, still to prepare for Him.
The time of waiting was long and dark. The types, especially in the permanent offices of priest and king, grew less rather than more perfect, as the men who held them grew less worthy of them. The kingdom was rent in twain, and in the true sense of the title there was no king of Israel, no captain of the Lord"s people. "The prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bare rule by their means." And, worst of all, the "people loved to have it so." Well might the prophet ask, "What will ye do in the end thereof?
THE DIVIDED KINGDOMS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL.
We may pass on rapidly now. In a sketch of this kind it would not be possible, nor if possible be worth while, to give a detailed notice of each of the kings that for a time reigned over the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel. It will suffice to state the general characteristics of each kingdom, and to trace the tendencies in each from the division of the monarchy to the Captivities. There is a dismal monotony about many of the reigns, especially in the northern kingdom. The special features of each, and the lessons which they seem to inculcate, will be found in the commentaries on the Books of Kings and of Chronicles.
Sometimes a weak rule following a strong one is a clear gain: the nation is able to advance more firmly, and develope more freely, for the relaxation which follows after discipline. Such might possibly have been the case had Rehoboam made wise concessions to the reasonable demands of his subjects. As it was, there was an unhealthy reaction, a severing of ties both political and religious in a way that almost precluded the possibility of reunion. It was a severing of ties which had long fretted some of those who were bound by them, and who were therefore all the less likely to seek to be reunited. The rivalry between Ephraim and Judah has been compared to that between the houses of York and Lancaster in our own history; but the parallel fails in several obvious particulars. In England we had not the miserable result of two rival kingdoms perpetuated for centuries. Again, the contest was between two royal families and their followers; there was no deep cleft running through the whole nation. When the families ceased to quarrel, the nation at once reunited. Lastly, our civil war was not embittered by differences of religion: neither party set up a religious as well as a political schism. From the time of the conquest of Canaan the leadership of Israel had been more or less with Ephraim. Joshua had belonged to it, and Ephraim held his tomb. Shechem with the two sacred mountains, and Shiloh the ancient sanctuary, were within its borders. The territory of Ephraim was both rich and secure. Its fruitful plains could scarcely be approached by an army either from the east or from the west, and no attack from either quarter is on record. Its vulnerable, though not very vulnerable, side was the north, and here, from the plain of Jezreel, Shalmaneser invaded it. These advantages fostered the haughty spirit which was natural to the tribe. Hence their jealous complaints against Gideon, (Jud_1:8:1) against Jephthah, (Jud_1:12:1) and against David. (2Sa_19:41) The death of Ishbosheth and the personal popularity of David staved off the rupture for a time, and retained Ephraim in uneasy union with Judah: but the success of Absalom"s revolt shows how insecure the tie between the rival tribes was. Had Solomon succeeded in killing Jeroboam, (1Ki_11:40) the union might possibly have continued for some time longer for want of a sufficiently able leader to head the secession. Rehoboam"s selecting Shechem rather than Jerusalem for Iris coronation shows that he was not disinclined to recognise Ephraim"s claims on the reigning house. But it was far too late for a trifling concession of this kind to do much towards soothing angry and ambitious Ephraimites. It might even irritate them by flaunting a pomp before them which they knew was to be paid for by oppressive taxation: and Rehoboam was the last king of Judah who visited Shechem as part of his own dominion; the last also who, having ventured so far, returned home unmolested.
The history of the kingdom of Israel is mainly the history of the tribe of Ephraim; and some of the prophets call. attention to this fact by calling the kingdom not "Israel, or "Jacob," or even "Joseph, but simply Ephraim. (Hos_4:17 Hos_5:8-14, etc.; Isa_7:2-17 Isa_9:9, Isa_9:21, etc.; Zec_9:10, Zec_9:13) "The ten tribes" was a geographical rather than a political expression. Of the northern tribes it still remained true that they "dwelt among the Canaanites", (Jud 1:32, 33) rather than the Canaanites among them; and the tribes east of Jordan remained, as before, very much cut off from their brethren. Simeon and Dan gravitated towards the kingdom of Judah, together with the greater part of Benjamin; so that the kingdom of Israel is mainly the lot of Joseph; i.e., Ephraim and Manasseh. This fact must be borne in mind in considering the nature of the disruption. Here, as so often, we are in danger of confounding occasions with causes. It was not the ambition or ability of Jeroboam, it was not the task work and taxation of Solomon, it was not the folly of Rehoboam, which were the causes of the rupture. All these things combined made a very favourable opportunity for it: but the real causes lay deeper; viz., in the ambition of Ephraim stimulated by its undoubted advantages and tits jealousy of Judah, a jealousy of 400 years standing.
The kingdom of Israel had a grand opportunity of justifying the secession. It might resolutely have set to work to avoid and to remedy the grievous errors which had disfigured the latter part of the reign of Solomon. The fatal mistake consisted in supposing that these could be avoided by mere severance from the house of David, and that no remedy was needed. Had Jeroboam and his successors honestly laboured to abolish idolatry, to moderate taxation, and to strengthen the frontier, they would have retained the alliance of the prophets, the most powerful moral force of the age, and would have won the respect and lasting affection of the tribes. But they cared for their own dynasty much more than for the true religion, and to surpass Judah much more than to put down and thrust back the heathen. Thus even in the first period (from Jeroboam to Ahab, B.C. 975-900), which is one of hostility between two kingdoms, although Israel gains considerable advantages over Judah, yet what advance is made is wholly in the southern kingdom, while the northern simply goes back. Jeroboam, in order to make the break with the capital of Judah as decided as possible, made a clean sweep of all that could remind his subjects of the glory of David and Solomon, and with it of a large portion of the existing civilisation. Thus his kingdom was at once sent back to the rudeness of the age of Saul; and before long was plunged in the anarchy and consequent weakness which had distinguished the age of the Judges. Hence in the kingdom of Israel there seems to be nothing to compensate for the evil of division. For the evil of division in an empire is by no means necessarily unmixed. Sometimes the several portions develope all the more healthily for being independent, if only they have sufficient internal force and sufficient scope for action. The kingdom of Israel was deficient in both; and the force which it possessed was misdirected, so that what scope it had was thrown away.
In the kingdom of Judah the schism was by no means all loss, although the balance was on that side. It lost seriously in prestige and population, but it gained in compactness. It had the incalculable advantage of preserving the true religion. It possessed the temple, and (thanks to the wicked and shortsighted policy of Jeroboam) it possessed the sympathy and support both of the hierarchy and of the prophets. Jeroboam"s idolatrous sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan drove all the priests and Levites to Judah, and threw the prophets into irreconcilable opposition: and although the southern kingdom remained by no means free from the abominations of idolatry, still these existed side by side with the worship of Jehovah, and not (as in the northern kingdom) in place of it. Of the prophets whose writings have been preserved, only three seem to have ministered in the northern kingdom Jonah, Hosea, and Amos; and of these Amos was a native of Judah.
These advantages and disadvantages on the one side and on the other existed from the first; others showed themselves in the course of time. In the kingdom of Judah the crown remained in one family, the house of David, which possessed the enormous prestige of the promise of the Messiah. In Israel, on the contrary, dynasty never lasted for more than a few generations, and a new dynasty was generally introduced by a bloody revolution. Thus in the two centuries and a half, during which the kingdom of Israel lasted, it had nineteen kings, while Judah in the same period had only twelve. This of course was the result of the violent deaths which generally marked a change of dynasty in Israel. Israel in this respect sunk to the level of ordinary Oriental kingdoms, while the permanence of the house of David was probably absolutely unparalleled, and was therefore perpetual evidence of God"s blessing. We have seen that the period of the Judges is summed up in the statement that "in those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes". (Jud_1:17:6) Similarly the history of the kingdom of Israel may almost be summed up in one simple and typical narrative; "the people that followed Omri prevailed against the people that followed Tibni: so Tibni died, and Omri reigned." Might is right, and the weakest goes to the wall; but the mere change of names in the rivals adds nothing to the interest or instructiveness of the history. It is a dreary round of tyranny overturned by violence and succeeded by tyranny again.
Along with this contrast as regards the stability of the reigning house a contrast soon showed itself between the individual sovereigns in each kingdom. Israel produced a few kings who deserve to be called successful rulers, e.g. , Jehu and his descendant Jeroboam II, but not one who was morally even respectable. Jehu"s "zeal for the Lord" was apparently sheer hypocrisy: he put down Baal-worship because political capital might be made out of such an auto-da-fe , while he retained the worship of the calves because it appeared to be politically expedient to do so. In Judah, on the other hand, although there was abundance of idolatry and other wickedness among the kings, and although Solomon"s erections on the Mount of Olives to Chemosh and Moloch remained, and probably were used, for four centuries, yet upright and even holy kings were not wanting, some of whom carried out very thorough reforms, e.g. , Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah.
After a consideration of all these differences between the two kingdoms, and others might be added (e.g., fixedness of the capital on one side, and change on the other; subordination of the army in the one case, insubordination in the other), we are prepared for the final results that the kingdom of Judah lasted for 130 years longer than that of Israel, and that its punishment was limited in duration, whereas that of Israel continues to this day. No doubt a considerable number of the captives from Israel shared in the restoration of Judah, but the bulk of them have been merged in Oriental populations. The astounding fiction that the English nation is descended from the lost ten tribes contradicts the very first principles of history, ethnology, and philology; and even if it were true would be worthless for the purposes which it is supposed to serve; for the promises made to the patriarchs and their descendants are now transferred to the Christian Church. Not Jews, whether known to be so or not, but Christians are heirs to the promise. If this remains doubtful, surely St. Paul has written in vain. But of this more hereafter.
A more profitable question remains: Was the disruption of the kingdom unfavourable to the special mission of the Jewish Church? That mission was to keep religious truth alive in the world, to preserve the worship of the one true God, and to prepare a field for the Gospel. Even if united Israel, had it remained true to its calling, would have fulfilled the Divine purpose in the best way possible, yet it is not difficult to see how, under the conditions existing in the reign of Solomon, this purpose may have been better accomplished by the kingdom of Judah than by the whole nation. Let us remember that the Canaanite was still in the land, in the northern tribes perhaps still in a majority; that there was extensive commerce between TyPe and the northern tribes, and that this promoted idolatry and its attendant corruptions; that Syria, conquered and garrisoned by David, (2Sa_8:6) had under Rezon begun to shake itself free, (1Ki_11:23-25) and to produce a baneful effect upon the north of Israel. From all these evil influences the kingdom of Judah was very considerably protected by the barrier of the northern kingdom. Again, the expulsion of the priests and Levites from Israel, and their concentration in Judah, helped the cause of true religion in that kingdom. For, however much the hierarchy may have fallen below the level of their sacred office, they at least kept alive a knowledge of Jehovah and of His worship, wherever they were; and Judah now possessed the whole of this teaching, which before had been diffused through all the tribes. Above nil, the kingdoms being two instead of one, it was possible for one to be a lesson and a warning to the other. This was certainly the case latterly, to the great benefit of the true religion in Judah. Would Hezekiah"s reign have been as godly, would Manasseh have repented, would Josiah have been able to carry out his pious reforms, had there not been before the eyes of all the awful judgment which had overtaken the sister kingdom of Israel? Add to this the notable fact that precisely the period when Judah has friendly relations with Israel, and the two kingdoms axe to some extent reunited, is perhaps the very worst period both morally and politically in the history of Judah. For all these reasons we may believe that, although the disruption of the monarchy was an abandonment of the highest ideal, yet in God"s Providence good was brought out of evil; and, as in the earliest disruption of all, when the patriarch, broke their family bond by selling Joseph into Egypt, the wrong doing of the few was turned into a blessing for many, including in the end even the wrong doers themselves.
THE CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL.
After a duration of 255 years the kingdom of Israel came to an end in the reign of the nineteenth king, Hoshea. He was the last and the best of that unholy and irregular line of monarchs. It might perhaps surprise us that the annihilating blow should fall in the reign of the best king. But "the best king of Israel" is an expression of diminished blame rather than of praise. "He did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him". (2Ki_17:2) He is not good, but somewhat less abominable than his predecessors. We are not told in what this diminution of wickedness consisted. We may conjecture that when the golden calves were carried away, the one at Dan by Tiglath-Pfieser, and the one at Bethel by his son Shalmaneser, Hoshea did not set them up again, nor enforce the policy of the arch-apostate, of preventing his subjects from going up to Jerusalem to worship. It is not said of him, as of nearly all of his predecessors, that "he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." Even had Hoshea been like his contemporary Hezekiah, we may doubt whether the fate of Israel would have been averted. There is a point in the character of nations, as of individuals, at which gravitation acts irretrievably, and at which there is no possibility of redemption in the natural order of things. God may work a miracle of grace and turn the course of nature, but we have no right to expect Him to do so, even in answer to prayer, any more than to expect Him in answer to prayer to stop the avalanche which we have set rolling; and in this case there would seem to have been no prayer. If this is true of character, much more is it true of the natural results of character, the miseries which follow in the train of persistent wrong-doing, Repentance may be granted, but it may come too late to avert any of the temporal consequences of sin. "The case is become desperate: and poverty and sickness, remorse and anguish, infamy and death, the effects of their own doings, overwhelm them, beyond possibility of remedy or escape" (Butler, "Analogy" 1:2). Or, as the contemporary prophet Hosea testifies, (Jos_7:1, Jos_7:2) "When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their own doings have beset them about; they are before My face." The next verse seems to imply that, whereas in former times it was the kings that "made Israel to sin," in this last reign it is the people that take the lead in iniquity. "They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies." Thus the unrighteousness of sovereigns and their subjects acts and reacts one upon the other. Israel"s wounds were incurable, (Mic_1:9) her cup of iniquity, bloodshed, idolatry, and impurity was full, and the only cleansing that remained was that they and their sins should be swept away together.
Although the reign of the last king was morally superior to that of the others, yet politically the monarchy preserved its irregular character to the last. Like exactly half his predecessors, Hoshea was an adventurer, who gained the throne by the slaughter of his sovereign. In nineteen kings we have nine different dynasties, four of which end with the conspirator who founded it; among the whole nineteen "not one calling upon the Lord". (Hos_7:7) And thus the Lord was ever giving Israel a king in His anger, and taking him away in His wrath. (Jos_13:11)
The last terrible end did not come without warning. Over and above the permanent declarations of the Law, and the frequent denunciations of specially commissioned prophets, two lighter calamities heralded the coming of the final blow. In the last reign but one, Tiglath-Pfieser (B.C. 740) had carried into captivity the three tribes east of Jordan, (1Ch_5:26) "and Galilee, and all the land of Naphtali". (2Ki_15:29) At the beginning of Hoshea"s reign Shalmaneser made an attack on Phoenicia and terrified the new king of Samaria into becoming tributary without a contest. All Phoenicia was conquered except Tyre; and its success in holding out perhaps encouraged Hoshea to endeavour to throw off the yoke which he had accepted. To strengthen himself he made an alliance, not with Hezekiah, who also was revolting, but one forbidden by the law, with So king of Egypt, probably the Sabaeo of Herodotus or the Sevechus (Sevichos) of Manetho. Thus the same dark power which had tried to strangle the Chosen People at its birth, which had lent its sinister aid to the founding of the schismatical kingdom of Israel, now by once more lending aid contributed to its final overthrow. So truly was Egypt like the reeds of its own river, "on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it". (2Ki_18:21) The alliance was made known to Shalmaneser, who at once called Hoshea to account and put him in prison.
And thus Samaria"s king "is cut off, like a chip upon the water". (Hos_10:7) Samaria held out stubbornly, like Jerusalem after it, defending its walls, its "crown of pride", (Isa_28:3) with the courage of despair. This death struggle, the last of an expiring people, lasted three years; at the end of which the place was taken by Sargon, the successor of Shalmaneser. His "veni, vidi, vici is still in existence: "Samaria I looked at, I captured: 27, 280 who dwelt in it I carried away." This was the common policy of Oriental conquerors to transplant the inhabitants of conquered territories, and occupy their land with other populations. This served various purposes. It weakened both of the nations interchanged, and kept them for a time at least submissive; for their energy would be expended in settling in their new home. Sometimes a trustworthy people near at home was exchanged with a troublesome nation near the frontier: this was precisely the case with the Israelites. Sometimes a more advanced people were planted as a centre of civilisation in the midst of ruder tribes. The Israelites were not only transported but dispersed, no doubt with a view to prevent concerted action in the future, a policy which has been entirely successful. (2Ki_17:6 2Ki_18:11) A few may have escaped the Assyrian net and remained in Samaria, or have returned thither afterwards, to mingle with the Samaritans. A few returned with the Jews and became merged with them in Judea. Many would coalesce with the Jews in Babylon and become part oft he "Dispersion." It is worth noting in reference to the last two cases that Ezekiel, after the captivity of Judah, speaks of the captives as Israel. (Jos_2:3 Jos_3:1-7 Jos_4:3, Jos_4:13, etc.) The bulk probably carried their habitual love of idolatry with them into exile, and became lost by intermarriage with the heathen populations of Assyria. The imagination of Jews and Christians alike has tried to pierce the veil which history has drawn over their ultimate fate. The black Jews of Malabar, the Red Indians of North America, Afghan tribes, Himalayan tribes, the Nestorians, have all had their advocates as the representatives of the lost tribes. It was reserved for the present generation to suggest and maintain almost as an article of faith, or even as the announcement of a new gospel, the most wildly impossible theory of all, that the present descendants of these Semitic ancestors are the Aryan inhabitants of Great Britain. To some persons this astonishing hypothesis seems too absurd to be worth combating, while others allow it to pass as a harmless delusion.
The following questions demand a clear and reasonable answer from all those who advocate the doctrine:
(1) If Anglo-Israelism is true, how is that not a single theologian, or historian, or philologist of any eminence has accepted it, or even admitted its possibility? True that the Gospel was in the first instance hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes; but it does not therefore follow that what the wise and prudent reject, and babes accept, is true. Moreover, the wise and prudent accepted the Gospel when it became known to them. Here the wise and prudent disbelieve, not because things are hidden from them, but because they are known. It is those who do not know all that their own theory involves who believe.
(2) The change of a Semitic race into an Aryan race, of a Semitic language into an Aryan language, would be a miracle of the very highest order. Where is the evidence of the miracle? It is trifling with faith to believe in a miracle utterly unsupported by evidence. A nation disappears from history; after a lapse of many centuries another nation, entirely different in type and language, grows up in quite a different part of the globe; and we are asked to believe, without anything that can seriously be considered evidence, that the one has become the other. We might as well believe that the rose trees in the Temple gardens sprang from the olive trees of Gethsemane, through cuttings brought home by the Crusaders.
(3) Even if the theory were true, what would be its value? As already stated, the blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have passed over to the Christian Church. "He is not an Israelite who is one outwardly." Human generation has nothing to do with spiritual regeneration. "If righteousness comes by the law," if spiritual blessings depend on descent from Abraham, "then Christ died for nothing". (Gal_2:17)
Thus much with regard to the past seems to be in place and necessary in the present historical sketch. It would be altogether out of its scope to inquire into the future by discussing the hidden meaning of unfulfilled prophecy. We may leave on one side, therefore, the controversy as to the restoration of Israel. The prophesied restoration has been at least in part fulfilled by the share which Israel took in the return of Judah; and St. Paul seems to intimate (Romans 11) that henceforth the restoration will be spiritual, not literal. The Holy Land to which Israel needs to return is not that which once flowed with milk and honey, but the kingdom of God.
One other point remains to be noticed the condition of the land from which the captive Israelites were withdrawn. The matter is one of considerable obscurity as regards details, but the general outlines are clear.
That the bulk of the Israelite population was withdrawn, that heathen populations were put in its place, and that these formed the large majority, is manifest. It is also certain that it was Tiglath-Pileser who carried away much people from Reuben, Gad, eastern Manasseh, Naphtali, and Galilee, (2Ki_15:29 1Ch_5:26) and Sargon, who carried away a great many more from Samaria. (2Ki_17:6) Again, it is certain that it was Esarhaddon, Saxgon"s grandson, who planted heathen colonists in place of the captive Israelites, (Ezr_4:2) and that a great variety of such colonists came under the leadership of "the great and noble Asnapper". (Ezr_4:10) What is uncertain is, whether Sargon literally depopulated the country, or left a large number in the rural districts, how long an interval elapsed between the deportation under Sargon and the first importation, whether there was any importation previous to that under Esarhaddon, whether the immigrants led by Asnapper were those whom Esarhaadon sent or others. But none of these details are of serious moment. We know that the new inhabitants of central Palestine are heathens to so complete an extent that a Hebrew priest with assistants has to be sent back from Assyria, in order to "teach them the manner of the God of the land", (2Ki_17:27) so that the Israelites left behind by Sargon, if numerous, must have been grossly ignorant. We also know that the nation which grew out of these varied heathen elements and this insignificant Israelite element became hostile to the Jews on their return from captivity, (Ezr_4:1, etc.) continued so during New Testament times, (Mat_10:5 Luk_9:53Jo Luk_4:9 Luk_8:48) and remain so to this day. The religion which prevailed among the Samaritans was at first as mixed as the nation themselves. The priest sent back from Assyria would almost certainly be one of those instituted for the worship of calves, for the original priesthood had from the first retired to the southern kingdom. His settling at Bethel, the chief seat of Jeroboam"s calf worship, confirms this; and his teaching the new inhabitants to worship after the manner of the land can hardly mean anything but that he taught them to worship Jehovah under the image of a calf, which had been the manner of the land for two centuries and a half. The study of the Pentateuch and the proximity of the Jews after the return would tend to purify the religion of the Samaritans more and more until at last idolatry died out altogether. A people who claimed to keep the Law more strictly and have a purer worship than the Jews themselves would have made themselves ridiculous if they had tolerated idolatry; and this claim the later Samaritans made. But at first the hybrid nation not only worshipped God in a very imperfect, ignorant way, but were idolaters as well: "they feared Jehovah, and served their own graven images". (2Ki_17:33, 2Ki_17:41) Thus the goodly heritage of Ephraim, with its sacred spots and associations Jacob"s well, Ebal and Gerizim, Joshua"s tomb, Shiloh, and Shechem passed into the hands of strangers. What a glorious past! "When Israel was young then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son." What a miserable present! "Israel is swallowed up: now are they among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure." Yet there is still some hope in the future: "I will heal their falling away, I will gladly love them: for my anger is turned away". (Hos_11:1 Hos_8:8 Hos_14:4)
THE CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH.
There was a moment when the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah were in a condition of great prosperity together. The reign of Jeroboam II was the most prosperous period of the kingdom of Israel. When it was haft over, the youthful Uzziah came to the throne of Judah, which he was destined to fill for half a century. He was one of the ablest of the kings of Judah, victorious over Edomites and Philistines, fortifying the capital and the country round it, and promoting agriculture. It was at this time, towards the close of the reign of Jeroboam II, that Hosea began to prophesy, and he looked with longing eyes toward Judah, and dared to hope that even yet the children of Judah and the children of Israel might be gathered together under one head. (Jos_1:7, Jos_1:11) Uzziah had the happiness of being succeeded by a son equal to himself as a ruler, whereas Jeroboam"s success ended with himself. But under Jotham the general prosperity produced a love of luxury and wantonness of life against which Isaiah pronounced strong denunciations. Hence when the weak and wicked Ahaz succeeded the virtuous Jotham, he found a people only too ready to be pleased with him. The idolatrous party in the state now came to the top, and even heathen rulers were invited from abroad to take office. The grandest utterances of the grandest of the prophets seem to have had no lasting effect, and he continued his wicked course to the end. The group of righteous men that had gathered round Isaiah were cheered in spirit by a change of ruler. Wicked kings were still the exception rather than the rule in Judah, whereas Israel, now just at the close of its career, had never known a good king. At the time when Israel was swept into captivity, Hezekiah was reigning in Jerusalem, the noblest prince that ever sat on the throne of David. Not only was it said of him, that he "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did, praise that had not been given for nearly two centuries, but "he trusted in Jehovah, God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him." Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, and Amaziah had fallen away in their latter days; Uzziah had been guilty of gross profanity; but Hezekiah "clave to Jehovah," and as a consequence of this "Jehovah was with him". (2Ki_18:1-7) This had been said of no king since David. (2Sa_5:10) His fidelity was not untried. Assyria, having punished Samaria for its alliance with Egypt, prepared for taking vengeance on Egypt also. In such a struggle the little kingdom of Judah might be crushed as a pebble between two millstones. Repulsed from Egypt, Sennacherib fell back on Jerusalem. A victory there would cover his failure. It seemed an hour of the utmost danger for Jerusalem, and Hezekiah tried to buy the invader off. Sennacherib took the treasure, but still continued to march on Jerusalem; for the treasure increased his desire to capture the city. Thus was Hezekiah punished for trusting even for a moment in bribes rather than in Jehovah. Isaiah, in a strain of magnificent defiance, (2Ki_19:21-34) brought the king and the people round again to the attitude of supreme confidence in the Lord of Hosts; and just at the moment when the king of Assyria appeared about to swallow up the city, two irresistible disasters annihilated his huge army panic and plague. In a single night thousands died by the visitation of God. The rest returned with their crest fallen king to Nineveh. No deliverance like it had been known since the death of the first born in Egypt.
The strain and excitement of the crisis brought Hezekiah to death"s door; but at his passionate entreaty fifteen years were added to his life. The psalm of thanksgiving which he composed on his recovery shows that he too, like the king whom he resembles, was a true poet and a pious one; but it also shows the dreary, hopeless horror which crushed out every other thought in the mind of even a saintly man in the expectation of death. In the case of the sweet Psalmist of Israel we have noticed how the want of the spirit of forgiveness makes the Psalms so different from the Gospel In the case of his great successor we notice another point of inferiority the attitude of mind in the contemplation of death.
Hezekiah was the last king of Judah who did not outlive his felicity: he was prosperous to the last. His enemy, Sennacherib, died about the same time as Hezekiah, and along with them the man who had exercised such an influence over the lives of both, the prophet Isaiah. When Isaiah"s voice was silenced by death, and the godly Hezekiah was succeeded by the impious Manasseh (Commodus succeeding Marcus Aurelius), it might well seem as if the star of Judah had set, and as if the fate that had just overtaken Samaria must soon overwhelm Jerusalem. The prophets uttered the severest warnings, and Manasseh, unable to intimidate them, silenced them by death; among them, according to tradition, the aged Isaiah. This was the crowning act of iniquity which sealed the doom of the kingdom of Judah. "He filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon. (2Ki_24:4) The crisis to some extent resembles that of the struggle between Ahab and the prophets. There, however, the prophets in the person of Elijah were victorious; but a decline in the spirit of prophecy in the northern kingdom may perhaps be traced from that victory. In this later struggle in Judah the persecutor was for the time at least successful; (Jer_2:30 Zep_3:4) and it may be doubted whether the prophets ever regained their former position. They appear no more in the history of this long reign. But the truths to which they had borne witness, both in life and in death, were eternal and could not lose their power. And this horrible period, equal in its abominations and cruelties to the reign of a Caligula or a Nero, forced home two truths upon the few who in sorrow and indignation remained true to Jehovah;
(1) that the Messianic hope, the salt of the kingdom of Judah, must now be transferred to a remote future;
(2) that there must be a reward hereafter for those who had suffered so terribly for the truth in this life; their bodies might perish, but their souls were indestructible: if in this life only they had hope in Jehovah, they were of all men most miserable. (1Co_15:19) They saw, however, that even in this life Manasseh"s wickedness brought its proper punishment. Esarhaddon"s army found Jerusalem so weakened by the tyrant"s enormities that it could make no resistance, and Manasseh was carried away to repent in the prisons of Babylon. When he was allowed to return, there was a great change for the better in his government: the altar of Jehovah was restored, and foreign idolatry was to some extent put away, although not the forbidden worship in the "high places." But the evil had eaten too deeply into the heart and intellect of the people to be cured by a partial reform of this kind, or even by the more searching reformation under Josiah. The bright gleam which is again shed over Jerusalem during the reign of this young reformer extended even to the inhabitants of the northern kingdom. His orders for the extirpation of idolatry were obeyed throughout Palestine, and it might even appear as if the time were coming when the whole land should be once more under the rule of one king, a righteous prince of the house of David. These bright hopes were quenched by the untimely death of the virtuous king: the random arrow of an Egyptian ended the life of the best beloved sovereign that had reigned since David. His loss was bewailed with the profoundest lamentations by his heart. broken people.
The eye finds nothing pleasing to rest upon in the reigns of his four miserable successors. Their faithlessness and imbecility placed them at the mercy of the Assyrians, who never wanted a fair pretext for attacking them or an excellent prospect of success. Troop after troop of captives was carried away. (2Ki_18:13 2Ki_24:14 2Ki_25:11 2Ch_36:20 Jer_52:28, 29 Dan_1:2, Dan_1:3) The final blow fell when Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was led away, childless and sightless, to Babylon, when the walls were broken down, the temple laid in ruins, and all but a scanty remnant of the surviving population carried into captivity. It was the sad fate of Jeremiah to witness the complete fulfilment of his darkest prophecies. He survived the city whose overthrow he had predicted; survived to lament over it in elegies which for pathos and beauty are perhaps without an equal in literature. They remind us of David"s lament over Saul and Jonathan; but with this great difference; that whereas David finds comfort in the former glory of the fallen, this to Jeremiah is but an aggravation of his sorrow, so full is his mind with every detail of the unspeakable calamity that has fallen upon the guilty city. King and people, temple and priest, were involved in a common ruin; and the worst feature of all was that the ruin was more than deserved. It was but the inevitable outcome of a long series of royal and national and sacerdotal sins.
If the miserable apostasy and consequent overthrow of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah might lead us to question whether after all this renegade and ruined nation was the Chosen People of Jehovah, the history of the Jewish exiles in Babylon might reassure us of the fact. It is marvellous that the Jews still retained their nationality; still more marvellous that they continued to cherish hopes of a return and of a happy future under the promised Messiah. Their removal to a strange land, amid strange people and strange rites, the knowledge that their city was a ruin, their king a captive, their kinsmen slaughtered, failed to destroy either the one or the other. Even in the hour of His wrath Jehovah would still remember His covenant with Abraham and David. This they believed; and He alone could have kept alive such a belief under conditions which seemed emphatically to give the lie to it. They had one great assurance that their Divine King had not entirely deserted them. In this hour of their sorest need the voice of prophecy, so far from being silenced, was heard all the more clearly. Of the four "Great Prophets," three fall within the period of the exile. From Egypt, during the first period of the Captivity, Jeremiah continued the strong warnings and protests which had been the forerunners of the city"s fall In the land of exile itself Ezekiel and Daniel continued to make known the judgments of God to the captives and their conquerors. This alone sufficed to prove that Jehovah had not utterly forsaken His people. Moreover, their conquerors were moved to treat them kindly. They became not slaves but colonists; they were allowed to preserve their own laws and customs, their distinctions of rank and family; they might even rise, as Daniel did, to high office in the state. Lastly, there was a conspicuous contrast between their fate and that of the nations round about Judah, who had exulted over the downfall of their hereditary foe, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. These also, before long, felt the heavy hand of Nebuchadnezzar, and it crushed them utterly. As Jeremiah had foretold even before the destruction of Jerusalem: "Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith Jehovah, for I am with thee: for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee according to justice; but I cannot leave thee wholly unpunished". (Jer_46:28)
These words of Jeremiah, and others like them, would be in the minds of the Jews when they saw the armies of Cyrus pouring through the streets of Babylon; and it must have been with hope mud pride that they noticed how, amidst all the changes of sovereigns, it was still a Jew who was foremost among the statesmen at their court. Under Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius the Mede, and Cyrus, Daniel is constantly prominent and always prosperous; and we may confidently attribute it to his influence that one of the first acts of Cyrus, when he began to reign alone in Babylon (B.C. 536), was to issue a decree for the restoration of the Jews to their native land. and for the rebuilding of the temple.
THE RETURN FROM CAPTIVITY.
It is remarkable that the author of the Book of Ezra makes no mention of Daniel in connexion with the decree of Cyrus for the restoration of the Jewish nation and temple; he simply says, "that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled." The decree states that God had charged Cyrus to build Him a house at Jerusalem, which implies a knowledge of the prophecy of Isaiah; (Isa_44:28) and no one is more likely than Daniel to have told Cyrus of the prediction. Moreover, the parenthetical "He is the God" (Ezr_1:3) recalls Dan_6:26.
It shows how well they had been treated in the land of their exile that only about 50, 000 were found willing to avail themselves of the offer. The bulk preferred to remain in their new homes. Of these, some followed later; the rest formed the Babylonian branch of "the Dispersion," a very numerous branch, as the Book of Esther shows. Just as the whole nation had emerged from its first captivity in Egypt laden with the silver and gold of their panic-stricken taskmasters, so now this remnant goes forth from their second captivity, strengthened with the gifts not only of their brethren who remained behind, but of the heathen population also. Perhaps those who declined to leave their comfortable settlements for the chance of returning to the ruined Jerusalem eased their consciences by contributing to help those who were more willing to make sacrifices for Zion and for the glory of Jehovah.
With what thoughts did Zerubbabel and this band of exiles recross the Jordan on the way to regain their desolated homes! We have no record of the journey; but at this point the imagination would gladly picture something of the scene. The place, the crossing, the name of the high priest who accompanied them, could scarcely raft to remind them of that first triumphant crossing under Joshua 900 years before. This wreck of the nation was standing just where their ancestors had stood before them: but with how different a past, with how different prospects! Then Israel had been triumphantly wrested out of the hands of tyrannical oppressors; had vanquished all who came in contact with them in their long journey from Egypt, so that all the surrounding nations trembled at their approach; had before them the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. Now the remnant of a few tribes had been condescendingly allowed to depart out of the land of their half-pitying, half-contemptuous masters; had passed unopposed through the intervening populations; and now stood on the threshold of their own home in fear and dread lest any of the surrounding nations should forbid them to enter it. Before long their fears were realised. No sooner had they begun to rebuild the temple than the Samaritans asked to take part in the work. To have allowed this would have been to risk the purity of the religion, for polluting which they had already suffered such punishment; and Zerubbabel and Jeshua refused. By machinations at the Persian court the Samaritans succeeded in discrediting the Jews, and the work was stopped by order of "Artaxerxes," who is possibly Gomates, otherwise known as Pseudo-Smerdis in profane history.
Once more we see how readily men acquiesce in a bad state of things so long as their own personal comfort is not at stake. We have just seen how the bulk of the exiles were content to remain with maimed rites and ceremonies, cut off from Mount Zion and the worship of the temple, cut off from the Land of Promise, with all its sacred associations, in a heathen land, where they lived on sufferance at the mercy of an idolatrous sovereign; and all because they had obtained comfortable settlements, which they did not care to sacrifice. Now we find that those who rose above that temptation are in danger of falling victims to a similar snare in the home which they have recovered. The prophet Haggai rebukes them in the sternest language for their readiness to leave God"s house desolate if only their own houses were built and properly adorned. "Is it time for you to dwell in your inlaid houses, and this house lie waste?" "Mine house is laid waste, and ye run every man for his own house". (Jos_1:4, Jos_1:9) Thus, under the constant exhortation of Haggai and Zechariah, the work went on; and the second temple was finished in the sixth year of Darius, 21 years after its commencement, and about 70 years after the destruction of its predecessor. At the dedication offerings were made for all twelve tribes; those who had returned being considered the representatives of all Israel. Here again we notice a mournful contrast with the glories of the past. The new temple had less lofty dimensions and was far less magnificently adorned, It had no Shechinah. Of the 24 orders of priests only four were there to conduct the services. And compare the 712 animals offered at this dedication with the thousands sacrificed by Solomon!
It is here, probably, that we may insert the episode contained in the Book of Esther, the most purely historical Book in the whole Bible. Of course it may be used to point a moral whether that "blood is thicker than water," or that "pride goes before a fall:" but the main purpose of the book is simply to give a historical account of the origin of the feast of Purim. That the author has no religious object in view may be inferred from the fact that God is not even mentioned; nor is there any allusion to His worship, or the temple, or Jerusalem. The absence of these is a guarantee for the truth of the narrative. Had the whole been a fiction for the glorification of Esther, or Mordecai, or the Jews, the author would scarcely have omitted to give us some reflections on the providential character of the whole. As it is, the story is left to speak for itself. Only once, and then quite incidentally, the spirit of the author appears; and it is wholly in accordance with the spirit of Scripture generally: "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Jos_4:14) Just as the Book of Judges teaches us that God often selects very faulty and imperfect men to be His special instruments, that He can work with a Samson or a Jephthah no less than with a Moses or a Daniel, so the Book of Esther teaches us that in the ordinary careers of individuals and of nations, in which no miraculous element is present, no supernatural direction visible, it is still God"s hand that combines, His providence that guides, the endless complexities of human life. We call it chance that the king could not sleep, that he preferred reading to wine or music, that he asked for the chronicles rather than poetry, that the reader came upon the account of Mordecai"s services, that Haman entered the court at that moment, and that the king heard him, etc. But chance is only the name under which we hide our ignorance of causes, or our indifference towards them: and in all these "chances" Jew and Christian alike will trace the directing hand of God. The senseless caprices and fitful passions of Xerxes may work His will no less surely than the conscious and willing service of Joshua or Samuel The burning bush and the dry or dripping fleece may be granted to Moses and to Gideon: but although we have them not, it may still be hue of each one of us in the place to which we have been called, that we "have come to it for such a time as this." And if it be so with men"s work and duty, so also is it with God"s blessing and protection. Though there is no drying up of the Red Sea or of Jordan, no falling down of the walls of Jericho, yet evil does not therefore prevail. He who by miracles delivered His people from Egyptians and Canaanites can without miracles deliver them from Haman.
We return from this episode respecting the Jews of the Dispersion in Persia to those who had returned to Judaea. Their children had not kept up to the moral level of the devoted band who had left their prosperous settlements to rebuild Jerusalem. True, that the old fatal plague of idolatry was utterly eradicated, and a deep reverence for the law had taken its place; but the first enthusiasm of the return had passed away. Zerubbabel"s descendants and the house of David had sunk into obscurity; the change of language from the old Hebrew to the Chaldee caused the bulk of the people in be strangely ignorant of the Law: many abuses crept in; marriages with the heathen, usury, neglect of the sabbath, and the like. When Ezra, under the favourable rule of Artaxerxes Longimanus, Xerxes" successor on the Persian throne, led a fresh caravan of returning exiles to Jerusalem, he found much work necessary in the way of reformation. This was specially the case with regard to marriages with the heathen, by which the pure descent not merely of the nation but even of the priests was being contaminated. We could hardly have a stronger proof of the change wrought by the Captivity, in turning the people from love of foreign idolatry to devotion to their own law, than the fact that they consented to snap the strong ties of wedlock and fatherhood, when they became convinced that the law required it of them.
We need not suppose that the decree of Cyrus allowing the Jews to return and rebuild the temple and Jerusalem was an act of wholly unmixed generosity. There was probably something of Persian statecraft in it; viz., the wish to place a nation bound by ties of gratitude to Persia, for delivering them from Babylon and letting them go free, on the dangerous frontier that looked towards Egypt. At any rate, the generosity of the Persian kings had thus far been limited by their jealousy of possible rivals or rebels; and they had hitherto not allowed the Jews to rebuild the walls of a place strategically so strong as Jerusalem. The fortifications and gates of the city were still in the same ruined state to which they had been reduced by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. Consequently the Jews lived in constant dread of falling victims to the avarice, or jealousy, or animosity of their neighbours. A deputation was sent to the Persian court, where Nehemiah, a Jew holding high office among the great king"s personal attendants, became their spokesman. Here again, as in the history of Esther, we may trace the workings of Providence in the political history of the world. Previous events had contributed not a little to predispose Artaxerxes to listen to Nehemiah"s trembling request. The Persian empire had just received heavy blows from the Athenian admiral, Cimon. His victories, especially the last, in the midst of which he died, compelled Persia to abandon all attempts at aggression and to adopt a defensive position. She bound herself not to allow her armies to approach within three days" march of the sea. Jerusalem, being just about this distance, became a military position of the highest importance: and as risk must be run somewhere, it was better to allow Persian vassals under a native officer of tried fidelity to fortify it than to risk its falling into the hands of the enemies of Persia. Hence the secrecy with which Nehemiah acts, not only in the interests of the Jews but of the Persians. However, in spite of the active opposition of the Ammonites, Arabs, and Samaritans, the fortification of Jerusalem was successfully completed. And then Nehemiah, like Ezra, had to direct his attention to internal reforms. Abuses of the grossest kind, especially in the way of cruel oppression of the poor by the rich, had again crept in. By example and sharp exhortation Nehemiah rectified this, and, in conjunction with Ezra, renewed the often forgotten covenant between the people and Jehovah; after which he returned to the Persian court (c. B.C. 433).
It must have made this self denying and generous statesman indeed sick at heart to find on his return to Jerusalem, after some years of absence, that he had all this miserable work to do over again. The solemn covenant had been forgotten as soon as his back was turned. The high priest himself had profaned the temple; the sabbath was systematically violated; and mixed marriages had again taken place, the grandson of the high priest being one of the offenders. It is in the midst of the reformation of these evils that we lose sight of Nehemiah. His concluding prayer has been heard; he has been "remembered for good". (Jos_13:31, Jos_13:14) His good deeds have not been wiped out, but are preserved in the canon of Scripture for a memorial and an example forever.
Here the historical books of the Old Testament come to an end. The figures which fill the narratives contained in them have passed before us in their marvellous variety of office and character, of greatness and littleness, of virtue and vice; commanders and judges, priests and prophets, warriors and poets, kings and subjects. But their doings have been presented to us not for their own sake, but as indications of the working of those great principles upon which the moral government of the world in general, and more especially God"s dealing with His Chosen People, depends. We have seen that every great crisis in the life of the children of Israel has turned mainly on this one point of supreme importance the relation existing between the nation and its invisible King. Other factors have had great power the relations between the people and its rulers, between the rulers and the prophets, between tribe and tribe. But the main importance of all these has lain in the influence which they have exerted on the chief question of all the attitude of the whole people towards Jehovah. Great men influence critical conjunctures, but they do not create them. It would be more true to say that the conjunctures create the great men; at any rate, they give such men an opportunity of proving their greatness. Their influence is of the most diverse kind. Sometimes, like Jeroboam or Jehu, they may precipitate a crisis; sometimes, like Hezekiah and Josiah, they may retard it. The greatest, such as Samuel and David, strive to guide the nation through the critical period. Of others it may at least be said that they have "come to the kingdom for such a time as this;" and of none perhaps may this be affirmed with more certainty than of the two leaders who stand, the one at the opening and the other at the close of our period Joshua and Nehemiah. But whatever be the influence of such leaders, it is not with them that the student of sacred history has principally to deal, but with principles and institutions. The leaders, great or small, obtain significance mainly as illustrating the principles and working the institutions. Neither the principles nor the institutions were perfect, but progressive; they pointed to something nobler in the future, for which they were preparing the way. In their origin they were manifestly Divine; for
(1) they were frequently authenticated and sanctioned by exhibitions of miraculous power;
(2) they were immeasurably superior to those of other nations, who in culture and material civilisation stood on a much higher level. But although Divine, they were socially, morally, and spiritually imperfect. It is of the utmost importance to recognise this fact and keep it constantly in view. Without it the history of the Chosen People is worse than unintelligible; and what ought to be a pillar of fire to give light by night becomes a cloud and darkness. Life is full of mysteries, which we shall never explain on this side of the grave: while they awe and sober us, they need not confuse us. But let us beware of adding to them by enigmas and perplexities of our own making: and to refuse to acknowledge that the Almighty and Omniscient Ruler of the universe works out His purposes by means which, though relatively good, in themselves are imperfect and even evil, is to make not only the historical part of Scripture, but all history whatsoever, a hopeless riddle. Nothing is gained by foisting upon Divine institutions a perfection which does not belong to them; this is not humbly to honour God, but ignorantly to flatter Him. What would be miserable fare, or even slow poison, to a healthy man, may be the best diet for a sickly child; and this applies to moral laws no less than to doctrine. God could, if it had pleased Him, have antedated Pentecost by fifteen hundred years, and have revealed to Moses what He revealed to St. John; just as He might at any moment restore the whole human race to Paradise with a word. But this would be to destroy the educational progress of mankind, or, in other words, to eliminate the moral element from history.
Study of the past is generally our best, sometimes our only, guide to understanding and using the present. But the study must be reverent and patient, or it will be misleading. The question is not what God must do (according to our preconceived notions), but what He does; and "His thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways." Bearing this in mind, we shall find much comfort and guidance in dealing with the difficulties which confront Christians and Churchmen in our own day by studying those which beset the chosen people and the chosen tribe three thousand years ago. This much at least has been demonstrated by all the experience of Israel that belief in a Personal God, who has given men a law to live by, and to whom they must give account, is of all influences that have ever been tried, the only one that can tame and ennoble the fallen nature of man. In spite of the hopeless failure of Solomon, and the ruin of Israel and Judah, we are again being told that culture may be made a substitute for conscience, and that responsibility has no higher meaning than self respect. In spite of the indelible stigma which Scripture has written as the epitaph of Jeroboam, "who made Israel to sin," and the steady degradation of the kings and the kingdom of Israel, we are still assured that schism is a valuable expression of liberty, and that unity of doctrine and of worship means tyranny or narrowness of mind. There are errors in quite another direction also, for which the historical books of the Old Testament contain a cure. There are Christians who are staggered at the slow progress which the Gospel has made after eighteen centuries of preaching, at the slow progress which, with all its enormous advantages, it continues to make still. Were the prospects of truth, especially when seen in the light of the past, more hopeful, when Jeremiah uttered his solemn protests in Egypt, or Ezekiel his unflinching rebukes in the land of the Chaldaeans? The Divine light, instead of spreading, however slowly, seemed on the eve of being utterly extinguished. And yet, all the while, the road for the Gospel was being surely though darkly prepared. Again, there are Churchmen who are chafed and irritated, even if they are not utterly perplexed, at finding the Church as it now exists so woefully unlike the ideal which they find in Scripture, or which they have constructed for themselves. Some men in their uneasiness shift from one branch of the Church to another, often with the result of finding their disquietude increased rather than allayed: others, in despair, go out of their own communion and enter no other; so intolerable do external interferences or internal scandals appear to them, so incompatible with their idea of a true Church. When we are disposed to think "the tyranny of the state," whether it comes from "secular courts," or from a "non-Christian parliament," to be fatal to the very existence of a church, let us think of Manasseh"s infamous persecution, and be patient. Perhaps there never has been an age when the Church, whether Jewish or Christian, has not had much to bear from the powers that be. And why should she not? Why should she in this fare better than her Divine Head? And why should this age claim to be exempt? Again, when some grievous scandal, whether of simony or sacrilege, or false doctrine openly taught, makes men inquire whether a communion in which such things are possible can be a branch of the Church at all, let us remember the idolatrous erections of Solomon, tolerated within sight o! the temple for four hundred years, and again be patient. But just as there are persons who take pride in making out that their own particular maladies or troubles are in excess of those of their neighbours, so each generation flatters itself that it is passing through a great crisis, and that society, or religion, or the Church, was never in such peril before. It is never our duty, of course, to blind ourselves as to the existence of evil; but there are cases in which to ignore evil is less disastrous than to exaggerate it. The one need not interfere with the accomplishment of a great deal of good; the other by causing a panic is almost certain to do so. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
At the close of this historical section of the Pulpit Commentary it may perhaps be permitted to offer a suggestion for the consideration of preachers. It is in the historical portion of Holy Scripture that the most generally useful material for the preacher"s purpose may be found: yet on the whole it is very much neglected, greatly to the loss of congregations; especially of uneducated congregations. There are many who cannot understand or, if they understand, take but a languid interest in abstract theology, or abstract morality, who yet will listen with intelligence and eagerness when the doctrine or the morality are clothed in flesh and blood. The variety of character and incident given us in Holy Scripture is practically unlimited; and there is perhaps scarcely a doctrinal truth or ethical precept float could not be illustrated from some event or biography in the sacred narrative. The example of Scripture itself would seem to give us a guide in this matter: the historical element greatly predominates over the didactic in the Old Testament and somewhat predominates in the New. Or, to take higher ground still, that which is given us in the Gospel for our instruction and guidance is not so much a code, or creed, as a life; a life involving both definite rules and definite beliefs, no doubt; but still it is the pattern life that comes first. "Though ye believe not Me, believe the works: (Joh_10:38) that is the first step. And the second is on the same ground: "Believe Me for the very works sake". (Jos_14:11) It is with what Christ does, that is, with His life, that we must begin. And this applies in a lower degree to all the lives that are set before us in Scripture for instruction and warning. It is but an illustration of the well-worn saying, that "example is better than precept." People can comprehend and will listen to the encouragements and cautions to be derived from the doings and sufferings of men and women like themselves, who would carry nothing away from eloquent dissertations on virtue and vice. The command, "Go, and do thou likewise," the home thrust, "Thou art the man," will go direct to the heart in many a case in which the Decalogue, or any part of it, would never pass beyond the ear.
The following tables, drawn from the portion of the Old Testament which we have been considering, will illustrate the suggestion just made. They could be greatly enlarged even within the limits of this portion of Scripture. Of course, if the whole of the sacred history were placed under contribution, the illustrations might be increased and improved to a very large extent. But a stronger case is made out by showing how much may be done with no more than the section of the Bible immediately before us.
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.
Power
The cutting off of Jordan. The walls of Jericho. The destruction of Sennacherib"s army.
Mercy
The forgiveness of David. The respite granted to Ahab. The sparing of Nineveh.
Justice
The punishment of David"s sins. The miserable ends of the disobedient prophet, of Jezebel, Justice and of every dynasty in the kingdom of Israel. The different fates of the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.
Longsuffering
The whole period of the Judges. The many opportunities granted to Saul. The many opportunities granted to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
Truth.
The covenant kept with David. The fulfilment of prophetical warnings and blessings.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
First. Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Second. Jeroboam and the worship of the calves. Third Saul"s sacrifice. Saul"s ill-advised adjuration. Saul"s inquiring of the Lord by a witch. Fourth. Nehemiah and the sabbath breakers. Fifth. Ruth"s filial piety. Absalom"s rebellion. Sixth. The cruel vengeance of Joab and of Jehu. Seventh. Bathsheba. Eighth. Micah robbing his mother, and robbed by the Danites. Ninth. Ziba and Mephibosheth. Jezebel and Naboth. Tenth. Achan. Gehazi.
THE THREE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES.
Faith. The widow of Zarephath. Hope. Hannah. Charity. Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah.
THE FOUR CARDINAL VIRTUES.
Justice. Solomon"s early administration. Prudence. David at the court of Saul. Temperance. Josiah. The Rechabites. Fortitude. Deborah. Esther.
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS.
Pride. Nebuchadnezzar. Haman. Covetousness. Ahab and Naboth"s vineyard. Lust. The men of Gibeah. Samson. Amnon. Envy. Saul and David. Haman and Mordecai. Gluttony. Hophni and Phinehas. Anger. Saul and the priests. Sloth. Eli. Joash and the arrows.
It would not be difficult, especially if the Pentateuch and New Testament were added, to illustrate in this way the Creed, the Lord"s Prayer, and the Sermon on the Mount.
In writing this Introduction the works of the following writers among others have been used: Edersheim, Ewald, Perowne, Smith, Stanley; together with articles in the "Dictionary of the Bible" and various commentaries.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Jos 1:1 - Jos 1:11.
Joshua
THE NEW LEADER’S COMMISSION
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Jos 1:1 - Jos 1:11.
The closest connection exists between Deuteronomy and Joshua. The narrative may be read as running on without a break. It turns away from the lonely grave up on the mountain to the bustling camp and the new leader. No man is indispensable. God’s work goes on uninterrupted. The instruments are changed, but the Master-hand is the same, and lays one tool aside and takes another out of the tool-chest as He will. Moses is dead,-what then? Does his death paralyse the march of the tribes? No; it is but the ground for the ringing command, ‘Therefore arise, go over this Jordan.’ The immediate installation of his successor, and the uninterrupted continuance of the advance, do not mean that Moses is not honoured or is forgotten, for the narrative lovingly links his honorific title, ‘the servant of the Lord,’ with the mention of his death; and God Himself does the same, for he is thrice referred to in the divine command to Joshua, as the recipient of the promise of the conquest, as the example of the highest experience of God’s all-sufficing companionship, and as the medium by which Israel received the law. Joshua steps into the empty place, receives the same great promise, is assured of the same Presence, and is to obey the same law. The change of leaders is great, but nothing else is changed; and even it is not so great as faint hearts in their sorrow are apt to think, for the real Leader lives, and Moses and Joshua alike are but the transmitters of His orders and His aids to Israel.
The first command given to Joshua was a trial of his faith, for ‘Jordan was in flood’ {Jos 3:15},-and how was that crowd to get across, when fords were impassable and ferry-boats were wanting, to say nothing of the watchful eyes that were upon them from the other bank? To cross a stream in the face of the enemy is a ticklish operation, even for modern armies; what must it have been, then, for Joshua and his horde? Not a hint is given him as to the means by which the crossing is to be made possible. He has Jehovah’s command to do it, and Jehovah’s promise to be with him, and that is to be enough. We too have sometimes to face undertakings which we cannot see how to carry through; but if we do see that the path is one appointed by God, and will boldly tread it, we may be quite sure that, when we come to what at present seems like a mountain wall across it, we shall find that the glen opens as we advance, and that there is a way,-narrow, perhaps, and dangerous, but practicable. ‘One step enough for me’ should be our motto. We may trust God not to command impossibilities, nor to lead us into a cul de sac.
The promise to Moses {Deu 2:24} is repeated almost verbally in Jos 1:4. The boundaries of the land are summarily given as from ‘the wilderness’ in the south to ‘this Lebanon’ in the north, and from the Euphrates in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. ‘The land of the Hittites’ is not found in the original passage in Deuteronomy, and it seems to be a designation of the territory between Lebanon and the Euphrates, which we now know to have been the seat of the northern Hittites, while the southern branch was planted round Hebron and the surrounding district. But these wide boundaries were not attained till late in the history, and were not long retained. Did the promise, then, fail? No, for it, like all the promises, was contingent on conditions, and Israel’s unfaithfulness cut short its extent of territory. We, too, fail to possess all the land destined for us. Our charter is much wider than our actual wealth. God gives more than we take, and we are content to occupy but a corner of the broad land which He has given us. In like manner Joshua did not realise to the full the following promise of uniform victory, but was defeated at Ai and elsewhere. The reason was the same,-the faithlessness of the people. Unbelief and sin turn a Samson into a weakling, and make Israel flee before the ranks of the Philistines.
The great encouragement given to Joshua in entering on his hard and perilous enterprise is twice repeated here: ‘As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee.’ Did Joshua remember how, nearly forty years since, he had fronted the mob of cowards with the very same assurance, and how the answer had been a shower of stones? The cowards are all dead,-will their sons believe the assurance now? If we do believe that God is with us, we shall be ready to cross Jordan in flood, and to meet the enemies that are waiting on the other bank. If we do not, we shall not dare greatly, nor succeed in what we attempt. The small successes of material wealth and gratified ambition may be ours, but for all the higher duties and nobler conflicts that become a man, the condition of achievement and victory is steadfast faith in God’s presence and help.
That assurance-which we may all have if we cling to Jesus, in whom God comes to be with every believing soul-is the only basis on which the command to Joshua, thrice repeated, can wisely or securely be rested. It is mockery to say to a man conscious of weakness, and knowing that there are evils which must surely come, and evils which may possibly come, against which he is powerless, ‘Don’t be afraid’ unless you can show him good reason why he need not be. And there is only one reason which can still reasonable dread in a human heart that has to front ‘all the ills that flesh is heir to,’ and sees behind them all the grim form of death. He ought to be afraid, unless-unless what? Unless he has heard and taken into his inmost soul the Voice that said to Joshua, ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee: be strong and of a good courage,’ or, still more sweet and peace-bringing, the Voice that said to the frightened crew of the fishing-boat in the storm and the darkness,’ It is I; be not afraid.’ If we know that Christ is with us, it is wise to be strong and courageous; if we are meeting the tempest alone, the best thing we can do is to fear, for the fear may drive us to seek for His help, and He ever stretches out His hand to him who is afraid, as he ought to be, when he feels the cold water rising above his knees, and by his very fear is driven to faith, and cries, ‘Lord, save; I perish!’
Courage that does not rest on Christ’s presence is audacity rather than courage, and is sure to collapse, like a pricked bladder, when the sharp point of a real peril comes in contact with it. If we sit down and reckon the forces that we have to oppose to the foes that we are sure to meet, we shall find ourselves unequal to the fight, and, if we are wise, shall ‘send the ambassage’ of a humble desire to the great King, who will come to our help with His all-conquering powers. Then, and only then, shall we be safe in saying,’ I will not fear what man can do unto me, or devils either,’ when we have said,’ In God have I put my trust,’ and have heard Him answering, ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 1:9 As the Israelites entered Canaan, they would fight…
1:9 As the Israelites entered Canaan, they would fight the worshipers of the Canaanite gods, but they were afraid these gods would grant the Canaanites victory in battle. In reassuring Joshua, God used his personal name the Lord (Hebrew Yahweh; see study note on Exod 3:15) to remind Joshua that the Lord was more powerful than any false gods the Canaanites might invoke. • your God is with you: God’s continuous presence made it possible for Joshua to heed God’s instruction.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.