hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his
inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, on the
north of the mountain of Gaash." So, long after the age of Joshua, the
historian tells again how Israel lamented its great chief, and he seems
to feel even more than did the people of the time the pathos and
significance of the event. How much a man of God has been to his
generation those rarely know who stand beside his grave. Through faith
in him faith in the Eternal has been sustained, many who have a certain
piety of their own depending, more than they have been aware, upon their
contact with him. A glow went from him which insensibly raised to
something like religious warmth souls that apart from such an influence
would have been of the world worldly. Joshua succeeded Moses as the
mediator of the covenant. He was the living witness of all that had been
done in the Exodus and at Sinai. So long as he continued with Israel,
even in the feebleness of old age, appearing, and no more, a venerable
figure in the council of the tribes, there was a representative of
Divine order, one who testified to the promises of God and the duty of
His people. The elders who outlived him were not men like himself, for
they added nothing to faith; yet they preserved the idea at least of the
theocracy, and when they passed away the period of Israel's robust youth
was at an end. It is this the historian perceives, and his review of the
following age in the passage we are now to consider is darkened
throughout by the cloudy and troubled atmosphere that overcame the fresh
morning of faith.
We know the great design that should have made Israel a singular and
triumphant example to the nations of the world. The body politic was to
have its unity in no elected government, in no hereditary ruler, but in
the law and worship of its Divine King, sustained by the ministry of
priest and prophet. Every tribe, every family, every soul was to be
equally and directly subject to the Holy Will as expressed in the law
and by the oracles of the sanctuary. The idea was that order should be
maintained and the life of the tribes should go on under the pressure of
the unseen Hand, never resisted, never shaken off, and full of bounty
always to a trustful and obedient people. There might be times when the
head men of tribes and families should have to come together in council,
but it would be only to discover speedily and carry out with one accord
the purpose of Jehovah. Rightly do we regard this as an inspired vision;
it is at once simple and majestic. When a nation can so live and order
its affairs it will have solved the great problem of government still
exercising every civilized community. The Hebrews never realized the
theocracy, and at the time of the settlement in Canaan they came far
short of understanding it. "Israel had as yet scarcely found time to
imbue its spirit deeply with the great truths which had been awakened
into life in it, and thus to appropriate them as an invaluable
possession: the vital principle of that religion and nationality by
which it had so wondrously triumphed was still scarcely understood when
it was led into manifold severe trials."[1] Thus, while Hebrew history
presents for the most part the aspect of an impetuous river broken and
jarred by rocks and boulders, rarely settling into a calm expanse of
mirror-like water, during the period of the judges the stream is seen
almost arrested in the difficult country through which it has to force
its way. It is divided by many a crag and often hidden for considerable
stretches by overhanging cliffs. It plunges in cataracts and foams hotly
in cauldrons of hollowed rock. Not till Samuel appears is there anything
like success for this nation, which is of no account if not earnestly
religious, and never is religious without a stern and capable chief, at
once prophet and judge, a leader in worship and a restorer of order and
unity among the tribes.
[1] Ewald.
The general survey or preface which we have before us gives but one
account of the disasters that befell the Hebrew people--they "followed
other gods, and provoked the Lord to anger." And the reason of this has
to be considered. Taking a natural view of the circumstances we might
pronounce it almost impossible for the tribes to maintain their unity
when they were fighting, each in its own district, against powerful
enemies. It seems by no means wonderful that nature had its way, and
that, weary of war, the people tended to seek rest in friendly
intercourse and alliance with their neighbours. Were Judah and Simeon
always to fight, though their own territory was secure? Was Ephraim to
be the constant champion of the weaker tribes and never settle down to
till the land? It was almost more than could be expected of men who had
the common amount of selfishness. Occasionally, when all were
threatened, there was a combination of the scattered clans, but for the
most part each had to fight its own battle, and so the unity of life and
faith was broken. Nor can we marvel at the neglect of worship and the
falling away from Jehovah when we find so many who have been always
surrounded by Christian influences drifting into a strange unconcern as
to religious obligation and privilege. The writer of the Book of Judges,
however, regards things from the standpoint of a high Divine ideal--the
calling and duty of a God-made nation. Men are apt to frame excuses for
themselves and each other; this historian makes no excuses. Where we
might speak compassionately he speaks in sternness. He is bound to tell
the story from God's side, and from God's side he tells it with puritan
directness. In a sense it might go sorely against the grain to speak of
his ancestors as sinning grievously and meriting condign punishment. But
later generations needed to hear the truth, and he would utter it
without evasion. It is surely Nathan, or some other prophet of Samuel's
line, who lays bare with such faithfulness the infidelity of Israel. He
is writing for the men of his own time and also for men who are to come;
he is writing for us, and his main theme is the stern justice of
Jehovah's government. God bestows privileges which men must value and
use, or they shall suffer. When He declares Himself and gives His law,
let the people see to it; let them encourage and constrain each other to
obey. Disobedience brings unfailing penalty. This is the spirit of the
passage we are considering. Israel is God's possession, and is bound to
be faithful. There is no Lord but Jehovah, and it is unpardonable for
any Israelite to turn aside and worship a false God. The pressure of
circumstances, often made much of, is not considered for a moment. The
weakness of human nature, the temptations to which men and women are
exposed, are not taken into account. Was there little faith, little
spirituality? Every soul had its own responsibility for the decay, since
to every Israelite Jehovah had revealed His love and addressed His call.
Inexorable therefore was the demand for obedience. Religion is stern
because reasonable, not an impossible service as easy human nature would
fain prove it. If men disbelieve they incur doom, and it must fall upon
them.
* * * * *
Joshua and his generation having been gathered unto their fathers,
"there arose another generation which knew not the Lord, nor yet the
work which He had wrought for Israel. And the children of Israel did
that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baalim."
How common is the fall traced in these brief, stern words, the wasting
of a sacred testimony that seemed to be deeply graven upon the heart of
a race! The fathers felt and knew; the sons have only traditional
knowledge and it never takes hold of them. The link of faith between one
generation and another is not strongly forged; the most convincing
proofs of God are not recounted. Here is a man who has learned his own
weakness, who has drained a bitter cup of discipline--how can he better
serve his sons than by telling them the story of his own mistakes and
sins, his own suffering and repentance? Here is one who in dark and
trying times has found solace and strength and has been lifted out of
horror and despair by the merciful hand of God--how can he do a father's
part without telling his children of his defeats and deliverance, the
extremity to which he was reduced and the restoring grace of Christ? But
men hide their weaknesses, and are ashamed to confess that they ever
passed through the Valley of Humiliation. They leave their own children
unwarned to fall into the sloughs in which themselves were well-nigh
swallowed up. Even when they have erected some Ebenezer, some monument
of Divine succour, they often fail to bring their children to the spot,
and speak to them there with fervent recollection of the goodness of the
Lord. Was Solomon when a boy led by David to the town of Gath, and told
by him the story of his cowardly fear, and how he fled from the face of
Saul to seek refuge among Philistines? Was Absalom in his youth ever
taken to the plains of Bethlehem and shown where his father fed the
flocks, a poor shepherd lad, when the prophet sent for him to be
anointed the coming King of Israel? Had these young princes learned in
frank conversation with their father all he had to tell of temptation
and transgression, of danger and redemption, perhaps the one would never
have gone astray in his pride nor the other died a rebel in that wood of
Ephraim. The Israelitish fathers were like many fathers still, they left
the minds of their boys and girls uninstructed in life, uninstructed in
the providence of God, and this in open neglect of the law which marked
out their duty for them with clear injunction, recalling the themes and
incidents on which they were to dwell.
One passage in the history of the past must have been vividly before
the minds of those who crossed the Jordan under Joshua, and should have
stood a protest and warning against the idolatry into which families so
easily lapsed throughout the land. Over at Shittim, when Israel lay
encamped on the skirts of the mountains of Moab, a terrible sentence of
Moses had fallen like a thunderbolt. On some high place near the camp a
festival of Midianitish idolatry, licentious in the extreme, attracted
great numbers of Hebrews; they went astray after the worst fashion of
paganism, and the nation was polluted in the idolatrous orgies. Then
Moses gave judgment--"Take the heads of the people and hang them up
before the Lord, against the sun." And while that hideous row of stakes,
each bearing the transfixed body of a guilty chief, witnessed in the
face of the sun for the Divine ordinance of purity, there fell a plague
that carried off twenty-four thousand of the transgressors. Was that
forgotten? Did the terrible punishment of those who sinned in the matter
of Baal-peor not haunt the memories of men when they entered the land of
Baal-worship? No: like others, they were able to forget. Human nature is
facile, and from a great horror of judgment can turn in quick recovery
of the usual ease and confidence. Men have been in the valley of the
shadow of death, where the mouth of hell is; they have barely escaped;
but when they return upon it from another side they do not recognize the
landmarks nor feel the need of being on their guard. They teach their
children many things, but neglect to make them aware of that
right-seeming way the end whereof are the ways of death.
* * * * *
The worship of the Baalim and Ashtaroth and the place which this came to
have in Hebrew life require our attention here. Canaan had for long
been more or less subject to the influence of Chaldea and Egypt, and
"had received the imprint of their religious ideas. The fish-god of
Babylon reappears at Ascalon in the form of Dagon, the name of the
goddess Astarte and her character seem to be adapted from the Babylonian
Ishtar. Perhaps these divinities were introduced at a time when part of
the Canaanite tribes lived on the borders of the Persian Gulf, in daily
contact with the inhabitants of Chaldea."[2] The Egyptian Isis and
Osiris, again, are closely connected with the Tammuz and Astarte
worshipped in Phoenicia. In a general way it may be said that all the
races inhabiting Syria had the same religion, but "each tribe, each
people, each town had its Lord, its Master, its Baal, designated by a
particular title for distinction from the masters or Baals of
neighbouring cities. The gods adored at Tyre and Sidon were called
Baal-Sur, the Master of Tyre; Baal-Sidon, the Master of Sidon. The
highest among them, those that impersonated in its purity the conception
of heavenly fire, were called kings of the gods. El or Kronos reigned at
Byblos; Chemosh among the Moabites; Amman among the children of Ammon;
Soutkhu among the Hittites." Melcarth, the Baal of the world of death,
was the Master of Tyre. Each Baal was associated with a female divinity,
who was the mistress of the town, the queen of the heavens. The common
name of these goddesses was Astarte. There was an Ashtoreth of Chemosh
among the Moabites. The Ashtoreth of the Hittites was called Tanit.
There was an Ashtoreth Karnaim or Horned, so called with reference to
the crescent moon; and another was Ashtoreth Naamah, the good Astarte.
In short, a special Astarte could be created by any town and named by
any fancy, and Baals were multiplied in the same way. It is, therefore,
impossible to assign any distinct character to these inventions. The
Baalim mostly represented forces of nature--the sun, the stars. The
Astartes presided over love, birth, the different seasons of the year,
and--war. "The multitude of secondary Baalim and Ashtaroth tended to
resolve themselves into a single supreme pair, in comparison with whom
the others had little more than a shadowy existence." As the sun and
moon outshine all the other heavenly bodies, so two principal deities
representing them were supreme.
[2] Maspero.
The worship connected with this horde of fanciful beings is well known
to have merited the strongest language of detestation applied to it by
the Hebrew prophets. The ceremonies were a strange and degrading blend
of the licentious and the cruel, notorious even in a time of gross and
hideous rites. The Baalim were supposed to have a fierce and envious
disposition, imperiously demanding the torture and death not only of
animals but of men. The horrible notion had taken root that in times of
public danger king and nobles must sacrifice their children in fire for
the pleasure of the god. And while nothing of this sort was done for the
Ashtaroth their demands were in one aspect even more vile.
Self-mutilation, self-defilement were acts of worship, and in the great
festivals men and women gave themselves up to debauchery which cannot be
described. No doubt some of the observances of this paganism were mild
and simple. Feasts there were at the seasons of reaping and vintage
which were of a bright and comparatively harmless character; and it was
by taking part in these that Hebrew families began their acquaintance
with the heathenism of the country. But the tendency of polytheism is
ever downward. It springs from a curious and ignorant dwelling on the
mysterious processes of nature, untamed fancy personifying the causes of
all that is strange and horrible, constantly wandering therefore into
more grotesque and lawless dreams of unseen powers and their claims on
man. The imagination of the worshipper, which passes beyond his power of
action, attributes to the gods energy more vehement, desires more
sweeping, anger more dreadful than he finds in himself. He thinks of
beings who are strong in appetite and will and yet under no restraint or
responsibility. In the beginning polytheism is not necessarily vile and
cruel; but it must become so as it develops. The minds by whose fancies
the gods are created and furnished with adventures are able to conceive
characters vehemently cruel, wildly capricious and impure. But how can
they imagine a character great in wisdom, holiness and justice? The
additions of fable and belief made from age to age may hold in solution
some elements that are good, some of man's yearning for the noble and
true beyond him. The better strain, however, is overborne in popular
talk and custom by the tendency to fear rather than to hope in presence
of unknown powers, the necessity which is felt to avert possible anger
of the gods or make sure of their patronage. Sacrifices are multiplied,
the offerer exerting himself more and more to gain his main point at
whatever expense; while he thinks of the world of gods as a region in
which there is jealousy of man's respect and a multitude of rival claims
all of which must be met. Thus the whole moral atmosphere is thrown into
confusion.
Into a polytheism of this kind came Israel, to whom had been committed a
revelation of the one true God, and in the first moment of homage at
heathen altars the people lost the secret of its strength. Certainly
Jehovah was not abandoned; He was thought of still as the Lord of
Israel. But He was now one among many who had their rights and could
repay the fervent worshipper. At one high-place it was Jehovah men
sought, at another the Baal of the hill and his Ashtoreth. Yet Jehovah
was still the special patron of the Hebrew tribes and of no others, and
in trouble they turned to Him for relief. So in the midst of mythology
Divine faith had to struggle for existence. The stone pillars which the
Israelites erected were mostly to the name of God, but Hebrews danced
with Hittite and Jebusite around the poles of Astarte, and in revels of
nature-worship they forgot their holy traditions, lost their vigour of
body and soul. The doom of apostasy fulfilled itself. They were unable
to stand before their enemies. "The hand of the Lord was against them
for evil, and they were greatly distressed."
* * * * *
And why could not Israel rest in the debasement of idolatry? Why did not
the Hebrews abandon their distinct mission as a nation and mingle with
the races they came to convert or drive away? They could not rest; they
could not mingle and forget. Is there ever peace in the soul of a man
who falls from early impressions of good to join the licentious and the
profane? He has still his own personality, shot through with
recollections of youth and traits inherited from godly ancestors. It is
impossible for him to be at one with his new companions in their revelry
and vice. He finds that from which his souls revolts, he feels disgust
which he has to overcome by a strong effort of perverted will. He
despises his associates and knows in his inmost heart that he is of a
different race. Worse he may become than they, but he is never the same.
So was it in the degradation of the Israelites, both individually and as
a nation. From complete absorption among the peoples of Canaan they were
preserved by hereditary influences which were part of their very life,
by holy thoughts and hopes embodied in their national history, by the
rags of that conscience which remained from the law-giving of Moses and
the discipline of the wilderness. Moreover, akin as they were to the
idolatrous races, they had a feeling of closer kinship with each other,
tribe with tribe, family with family; and the worship of God at the
little-frequented shrine still maintained the shadow at least of the
national consecration. They were a people apart, these Beni-Israel, a
people of higher rank than Amorites or Perizzites, Hittites or
Phoenicians. Even when least alive to their destiny they were still held
by it, led on secretly by that heavenly hand which never let them go.
From time to time souls were born among them aglow with devout
eagerness, confident in the faith of God. The tribes were roused out of
lethargy by voices that woke many recollections of half-forgotten
purpose and hope. Now from Judah in the south, now from Ephraim in the
centre, now from Dan or Gilead a cry was raised. For a time at least
manhood was quickened, national feeling became keen, the old faith was
partly revived, and God had again a witness in His people.
We have found the writer of the Book of Judges consistent and
unfaltering in his condemnation of Israel; he is equally consistent and
eager in his vindication of God. It is to him no doubtful thing, but an
assured fact, that the Holy One came with Israel from Paran and marched
with the people from Seir. He has no hesitation in ascribing to Divine
providence and grace the deeds of those men who go by the name of
judges. It startles and even confounds some to note the plain direct
terms in which God is made, so to speak, responsible for those rude
warriors whose exploits we are to review,--for Ehud, for Jephthah, for
Samson. The men are children of their age, vehement, often reckless, not
answering to the Christian ideal of heroism. They do rough work in a
rough way. If we found their history elsewhere than in the Bible we
should be disposed to class them with the Roman Horatius, the Saxon
Hereward, the Jutes Hengest and Horsa and hardly dare to call them men
of God's hand. But here they are presented bearing the stamp of a Divine
vocation; and in the New Testament it is emphatically reaffirmed. "What
shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak,
Samson, Jephthah; ... who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises, ... waxed mighty in war, turned to
flight armies of aliens."
There is a crude religious sentimentalism to which the Bible gives no
countenance. Where we, mistaking the meaning of providence because we do
not rightly believe in immortality, are apt to think with horror of the
miseries of men, the vigorous veracity of sacred writers directs our
thought to the moral issues of life and the vast movements of God's
purifying design. Where we, ignorant of much that goes to the making of
a world, lament the seeming confusion and the errors, the Bible seer
discerns that the cup of red wine poured out is in the hand of Almighty
Justice and Wisdom. It is of a piece with the superficial feeling of
modern society to doubt whether God could have any share in the deeds of
Jephthah and the career of Samson, whether these could have any place in
the Divine order. Look at Christ and His infinite compassion, it is
said; read that God is love, and then reconcile if you can this view of
His character with the idea which makes Barak and Gideon His ministers.
Out of all such perplexities there is a straight way. You make light of
moral evil and individual responsibility when you say that this war or
that pestilence has no Divine mission. You deny eternal righteousness
when you question whether a man, vindicating it in the time-sphere, can
have a Divine vocation. The man is but a human instrument. True. He is
not perfect, he is not even spiritual. True. Yet if there is in him a
gleam of right and earnest purpose, if he stands above his time in
virtue of an inward light which shows him but a single truth, and in the
spirit of that strikes his blow--is it to be denied that within his
limits he is a weapon of the holiest Providence, a helper of eternal
grace?
The storm, the pestilence have a providential errand. They urge men to
prudence and effort; they prevent communities from settling on their
lees. But the hero has a higher range of usefulness. It is not mere
prudence he represents, but the passion for justice. For right against
might, for liberty against oppression he contends, and in striking his
blow he compels his generation to take into account morality and the
will of God. He may not see far, but at least he stirs inquiry as to the
right way, and though thousands die in the conflict he awakens there is
a real gain which the coming age inherits. Such a one, however faulty
however, as we may say, earthly, is yet far above mere earthly levels.
His moral concepts may be poor and low compared with ours; but the heat
that moves him is not of sense, not of clay. Obstructed it is by the
ignorance and sin of our human estate, nevertheless it is a supernatural
power, and so far as it works in any degree for righteousness, freedom,
the realization of God, the man is a hero of faith.