Palestine is a small strip of land between the mountains of Syria and
the green waters of the Mediterranean. It has been inhabited since time
immemorial, but we do not know very much about the first settlers,
although we have given them the name of Canaanites.
The Canaanites belonged to the Semitic race. Their ancestors, like those
of the Jews and the Babylonians, had been a desert folk. But when the
Jews entered Palestine, the Canaanites lived in towns and villages. They
were no longer shepherds but traders. Indeed, in the Jewish language,
Canaanite and merchant came to mean the same thing.
They had built themselves strong cities, surrounded by high walls and
they did not allow the Jews to enter their gates, but they forced them
to keep to the open country and make their home amidst the grassy lands
of the valleys.
After a time, however, the Jews and the Canaanites became friends. This
was not so very difficult for they both belonged to the same race.
Besides they feared a common enemy and only their united strength could
defend their country against these dangerous neighbors, who were called
the Philistines and who belonged to an entirely different race.
The Philistines really had no business in Asia. They were Europeans, and
their earliest home had been in the Isle of Crete. At what age they had
settled along the shores of the Mediterranean is quite uncertain because
we do not know when the Indo-European invaders had driven them from
their island home. But even the Egyptians, who called them Purasati, had
feared them greatly and when the Philistines (who wore a headdress of
feathers just like our Indians) went upon the war-path, all the people
of western Asia sent large armies to protect their frontiers.
[Illustration: JERUSALEM.]
As for the war between the Philistines and the Jews, it never came to an
end. For although David slew Goliath (who wore a suit of armor which was
a great curiosity in those days and had been no doubt imported from the
island of Cyprus where the copper mines of the ancient world were found)
and although Samson killed the Philistines wholesale when he buried
himself and his enemies beneath the temple of Dagon, the Philistines
always proved themselves more than a match for the Jews and never
allowed the Hebrew people to get hold of any of the harbors of the
Mediterranean.
The Jews therefore were obliged by fate to content themselves with the
valleys of eastern Palestine and there, on the top of a barren hill,
they erected their capital.
The name of this city was Jerusalem and for thirty centuries it has been
one of the most holy spots of the western world.
In the dim ages of the unknown past, Jerusalem, the Home of Peace, had
been a little fortified outpost of the Egyptians who had built many
small fortifications and castles along the mountain ridges of Palestine,
to defend their outlying frontier against attacks from the East.
After the downfall of the Egyptian Empire, a native tribe, the
Jebusites, had moved into the deserted city. Then came the Jews who
captured the town after a long struggle and made it the residence of
their King David.
At last, after many years of wandering the Tables of the Law seemed to
have reached a place of enduring rest. Solomon, the Wise, decided to
provide them with a magnificent home. Far and wide his messengers
travelled to ransack the world for rare woods and precious metals. The
entire nation was asked to offer its wealth to make the House of God
worthy of its holy name. Higher and higher the walls of the temple arose
guarding the sacred Laws of Jehovah for all the ages.
Alas, the expected eternity proved to be of short duration. Themselves
intruders among hostile neighbors, surrounded by enemies on all sides,
harassed by the Philistines, the Jews did not maintain their
independence for very long.
They fought well and bravely. But their little state, weakened by petty
jealousies, was easily overpowered by the Assyrians and the Egyptians
and the Chaldeans and when Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, took
Jerusalem in the year 586 before the birth of Christ, he destroyed the
city and the temple, and the Tablets of Stone went up in the general
conflagration.
At once the Jews set to work to rebuild their holy shrine. But the days
of Solomon's glory were gone. The Jews were the subjects of a foreign
race and money was scarce. It took seventy years to reconstruct the old
edifice. It stood securely for three hundred years but then a second
invasion took place and once more the red flames of the burning temple
brightened the skies of Palestine.
When it was rebuilt for the third time, it was surrounded by two high
walls with narrow gates and several inner courts were added to make
sudden invasion in the future an impossibility.
But ill-luck pursued the city of Jerusalem.
In the sixty-fifth year before the birth of Christ, the Romans under
their general Pompey took possession of the Jewish capital. Their
practical sense did not take kindly to an old city with crooked and dark
streets and many unhealthy alley-ways. They cleaned up this old rubbish
(as they considered it) and built new barracks and large public
buildings and swimming-pools and athletic parks and they forced their
modern improvements upon an unwilling populace.
The temple which served no practical purposes (as far as they could see)
was neglected until the days of Herod, who was King of the Jews by the
Grace of the Roman sword and whose vanity wished to renew the ancient
splendor of the bygone ages. In a half-hearted manner the oppressed
people set to work to obey the orders of a master who was not of their
own choosing.
When the last stone had been placed in its proper position another
revolution broke out against the merciless Roman tax gatherers. The
temple was the first victim of this rioting. The soldiers of the Emperor
Titus promptly set fire to this center of the old Jewish faith. But the
city of Jerusalem was spared.
Palestine however continued to be the scene of unrest.
The Romans who were familiar with all sorts of races of men and who
ruled countries where a thousand different divinities were worshipped
did not know how to handle the Jews. They did not understand the Jewish
character at all. Extreme tolerance (based upon indifference) was the
foundation upon which Rome had constructed her very successful Empire.
Roman governors never interfered with the religious belief of subject
tribes. They demanded that a picture or a statue of the Emperor be
placed in the temples of the people who inhabited the outlying parts of
the Roman domains. This was a mere formality and it did not have any
deep significance. But to the Jews such a thing seemed highly
sacrilegious and they would not desecrate their Holiest of Holies by the
carven image of a Roman potentate.
They refused.
The Romans insisted.
In itself a matter of small importance, a misunderstanding of this sort
was bound to grow and cause further ill-feeling. Fifty-two years after
the revolt under the Emperor Titus the Jews once more rebelled. This
time the Romans decided to be thorough in their work of destruction.
Jerusalem was destroyed.
The temple was burned down.
A new Roman city, called Aelia Capitolina was erected upon the ruins of
the old city of Solomon.
A heathenish temple devoted to the worship of Jupiter was built upon the
site where the faithful had worshipped Jehovah for almost a
thousand years.
The Jews themselves were expelled from their capital and thousands of
them were driven away from the home of their ancestors.
From that moment on they became wanderers upon the face of the Earth.
But the Holy Laws no longer needed the safe shelter of a royal shrine.
Their influence had long since passed beyond the narrow confines of the
land of Judah. They had become a living symbol of Justice wherever
honorable people tried to live a righteous life.