the leaders of a suffering people in the way of vindicating what they
deem their rights. Moreover, there are claims and rights so-called for
which it is impious to shed a drop of blood. But if the state of
humanity is such that the Son of God must die for it, is there any room
to wonder that men have to die for it? Given a cause like that of
Israel, a need of the whole world which Israel only could meet, and the
men who unselfishly, at the risk of death, did their part in the front
of the struggle which that cause and that need demanded, though they
slew their thousands, were not men of whom the Christian teacher needs
be afraid to speak. And there have been many such in all nations, for
the principle by which we judge is of the broadest application,--men who
have led the forlorn hopes of nations, driven back the march of tyrants,
given law and order to an unsettled land.
Judge after judge was "raised up"--the word is true--and rallied the
tribes of Israel, and while each lived there were renewed energy and
prosperity. But the moral revival was never in the deeps of life and no
deliverance was permanent. It is only a faithful nation that can use
freedom. Neither trouble nor release from trouble will certainly make
either a man or a people steadily true to the best. Unless there is
along with trouble a conviction of spiritual need and failure, men will
forget the prayers and vows they made in their extremity. Thus in the
history of Israel, as in the history of many a soul, periods of
suffering and of prosperity succeed each other and there is no distinct
growth of the religious life. All these experiences are meant to throw
men back upon the seriousness of duty, and the great purpose God has in
their existence. We must repent not because we are in pain or grief, but
because we are estranged from the Holy One and have denied the God of
Salvation. Until the soul comes to this it only struggles out of one pit
to fall into another.
V.
_THE ARM OF ARAM AND OF OTHNIEL._
JUDGES iii. 1-11.
We come now to a statement of no small importance, which may be the
cause of some perplexity. It is emphatically affirmed that God fulfilled
His design for Israel by leaving around it in Canaan a circle of
vigorous tribes very unlike each other, but alike in this, that each
presented to the Hebrews a civilisation from which something might be
learned but much had to be dreaded, a seductive form of paganism which
ought to have been entirely resisted, an aggressive energy fitted to
rouse their national feeling. We learn that Israel was led along a
course of development resembling that by which other nations have
advanced to unity and strength. As the Divine plan is unfolded, it is
seen that not by undivided possession of the Promised Land, not by swift
and fierce clearing away of opponents, was Israel to reach its glory and
become Jehovah's witness, but in the way of patient fidelity amidst
temptations, by long struggle and arduous discipline. And why should
this cause perplexity? If moral education did not move on the same line
for all peoples in every age, then indeed mankind would be put to
intellectual confusion. There was never any other way for Israel than
for the rest of the world.
"These are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them, to
know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord." The
first-named are the Philistines, whose settlements on the coast-plain
toward Egypt were growing in power. They were a maritime race,
apparently much like the Danish invaders of Saxon England, sea-rovers or
pirates, ready for any fray that promised spoil. In the great coalition
of peoples that fell on Egypt during the reign of Ramses III., about the
year 1260 B.C., Philistines were conspicuous, and after the crushing
defeat of the expedition they appear in larger numbers on the coast of
Canaan. Their cities were military republics skilfully organized, each
with a _seren_ or war-chief, the chiefs of the hundred cities forming a
council of federation. Their origin is not known; but we may suppose
them to have been a branch of the Amorite family, who after a time of
adventure were returning to their early haunts. It may be reckoned
certain that in wealth and civilization they presented a marked contrast
to the Israelites, and their equipments of all kinds gave them great
advantage in the arts of war and peace. Even in the period of the Judges
there were imposing temples in the Philistine cities and the worship
must have been carefully ordered. How they compared with the Hebrews in
domestic life we have no means of judging, but there was certainly some
barrier of race, language, or custom between the peoples which made
intermarriage very rare. We can suppose that they looked upon the
Hebrews from their higher worldly level as rude and slavish. Military
adventurers not unwilling to sell their services for gold would be apt
to despise a race half-nomad, half-rural. It was in war, not in peace,
that Philistine and Hebrew met, contempt on either side gradually
changing into keenest hatred as century after century the issue of
battle was tried with varying success. And it must be said that it was
well for the tribes of Jehovah rather to be in occasional subjection to
the Philistines, and so learn to dread them, than to mix freely with
those by whom the great ideas of Hebrew life were despised.
On the northward sea-board a quite different race, the Zidonians, or
Phoenicians, were in one sense better neighbours to the Israelites, in
another sense no better friends. While the Philistines were haughty,
aristocratic, military, the Phoenicians were the great _bourgeoisie_ of
the period, clever, enterprising, eminently successful in trade. Like
the other Canaanites and the ancestors of the Jews, they were probably
immigrants from the lower Euphrates valley; unlike the others, they
brought with them habits of commerce and skill in manufacture, for which
they became famous along the Mediterranean shores and beyond the Pillars
of Hercules. Between Philistine and Phoenician the Hebrew was mercifully
protected from the absorbing interests of commercial life and the
disgrace of prosperous piracy. The conscious superiority of the coast
peoples in wealth and influence and the material elements of
civilisation was itself a guard to the Jews, who had their own sense of
dignity, their own claim to assert. The configuration of the country
helped the separateness of Israel, especially so far as Phoenicia was
concerned, which lay mainly beyond the rampart of Lebanon and the gorge
of the Litany; while with the fortress of Tyre on the hither side of the
natural frontier there appears to have been for a long time no
intercourse, probably on account of its peculiar position. But the
spirit of Phoenicia was the great barrier. Along the crowded wharves of
Tyre and Zidon, in warehouses and markets, factories and workshops, a
hundred industries were in full play, and in their luxurious dwellings
the busy prosperous traders, with their silk-clad wives, enjoyed the
pleasures of the age. From all this the Hebrew, rough and unkempt, felt
himself shut out, perhaps with a touch of regret, perhaps with scorn
equal to that on the other side. He had to live his life apart from that
busy race, apart from its vivacity and enterprise, apart from its
lubricity and worldliness. The contempt of the world is ill to bear, and
the Jew no doubt found it so. But it was good for him. The tribes had
time to consolidate, the religion of Jehovah became established before
Phoenicia thought it worth while to court her neighbour. Early indeed
the idolatry of the one people infected the other and there were the
beginnings of trade, yet on the whole for many centuries they kept
apart. Not till a king throned in Jerusalem could enter into alliance
with a king of Tyre, crown with crown, did there come to be that
intimacy which had so much risk for the Hebrew. The humbleness and
poverty of Israel during the early centuries of its history in Canaan
was a providential safeguard. God would not lose His people, nor suffer
it to forget its mission.
Among the inland races with whom the Israelites are said to have dwelt,
the Amorites, though mentioned along with Perizzites and Hivites, had
very distinct characteristics. They were a mountain people like the
Scottish Highlanders, even in physiognomy much resembling them, a tall,
white-skinned, blue-eyed race. Warlike we know they were, and the
Egyptian representation of the siege of Dapur by Ramses II. shows what
is supposed to be the standard of the Amorites on the highest tower, a
shield pierced by three arrows surmounted by another arrow fastened
across the top of the staff. On the east of Jordan they were defeated by
the Israelites and their land between Arnon and Jabbok was allotted to
Reuben and Gad. In the west they seem to have held their ground in
isolated fortresses or small clans, so energetic and troublesome that it
is specially noted in Samuel's time that a great defeat of the
Philistines brought peace between Israel and the Amorites. A significant
reference in the description of Ahab's idolatry--"he did very abominably
in following idols according to all things as did the Amorites"--shows
the religion of these people to have been Baal-worship of the grossest
kind; and we may well suppose that by intermixture with them especially
the faith of Israel was debased. Even now, it may be said, the Amorite
is still in the land; a blue-eyed, fair-complexioned type survives,
representing that ancient stock.
Passing some tribes whose names imply rather geographical than ethnical
distinctions, we come to the Hittites, the powerful people of whom in
recent years we have learned something. At one time these Hittites were
practically masters of the wide region from Ephesus in the west of Asia
Minor to Carchemish on the Euphrates, and from the shores of the Black
Sea to the south of Palestine. They appear to us in the archives of
Thebes and the poem of the Laureate, Pentaur, as the great adversaries
of Egypt in the days of Ramses I. and his successors; and one of the
most interesting records is of the battle fought about 1383 B.C. at
Kadesh on the Orontes, between the immense armies of the two nations,
the Egyptians being led by Ramses II. Amazing feats were attributed to
Ramses, but he was compelled to treat on equal terms with the "great
king of Kheta," and the war was followed by a marriage between the
Pharaoh and the daughter of the Hittite prince. Syria too was given up
to the latter as his legitimate possession. The treaty of peace drawn up
on the occasion, in the name of the chief gods of Egypt and of the
Hittites, included a compact of offensive and defensive alliance and
careful provisions for extradition of fugitives and criminals.
Throughout it there is evident a great dependence upon the company of
gods of either land, who are largely invoked to punish those who break
and reward those who keep its terms. "He who shall observe these
commandments which the silver tablet contains, whether he be of the
people of Kheta or of the people of Egypt, because he has not neglected
them, the company of the gods of the land of Kheta and the company of
the gods of the land of Egypt shall secure his reward and preserve life
for him and his servants."[3] From this time the Amorites of southern
Palestine and the minor Canaanite peoples submitted to the Hittite
dominion, and it was while this subjection lasted that the Israelites
under Joshua appeared on the scene. There can be no doubt that the
tremendous conflict with Egypt had exhausted the population of Canaan
and wasted the country, and so prepared the way for the success of
Israel. The Hittites indeed were strong enough had they seen fit to
oppose with great armies the new comers into Syria. But the centre of
their power lay far to the north, perhaps in Cappadocia; and on the
frontier towards Nineveh they were engaged with more formidable
opponents. We may also surmise that the Hittites, whose alliance with
Egypt was by Joshua's time somewhat decayed, would look upon the
Hebrews, to begin with, as fugitives from the misrule of the Pharaoh who
might be counted upon to take arms against their former oppressors. This
would account, in part at least, for the indifference with which the
Israelite settlement in Canaan was regarded; it explains why no vigorous
attempt was made to drive back the tribes.
[3] "The Hittites," by A. H. Sayce, LL.D., p. 36.
For the characteristics of the Hittites, whose appearance and dress
constantly suggest a Mongolian origin, we can now consult their
monuments. A vigorous people they must have been, capable of government,
of extensive organization, concerned to perfect their arts as well as to
increase their power. Original contributors to civilization they
probably were not, but they had skill to use what they found and spread
it widely. Their worship of Sutekh or Soutkhu, and especially of Astarte
under the name of Ma, who reappears in the Great Diana of Ephesus, must
have been very elaborate. A single Cappadocian city is reported to have
had at one time six thousand armed priestesses and eunuchs of that
goddess. In Palestine there were not many of this distinct and energetic
people when the Hebrews crossed the Jordan. A settlement seems to have
remained about Hebron, but the armies had withdrawn; Kadesh on the
Orontes was the nearest garrison. One peculiar institution of Hittite
religion was the holy city, which afforded sanctuary to fugitives; and
it is notable that some of these cities in Canaan, such as
Kadesh-Naphtali and Hebron, are found among the Hebrew cities of refuge.
It was as a people at once enticed and threatened, invited to peace and
constantly provoked to war, that Israel settled in the circle of Syrian
nations. After the first conflicts, ending in the defeat of Adoni-bezek
and the capture of Hebron and Kiriath-sepher, the Hebrews had an
acknowledged place, partly won by their prowess, partly by the terror of
Jehovah which accompanied their arms. To Philistines, Phoenicians and
Hittites, as we have seen, their coming mattered little, and the other
races had to make the best of affairs, sometimes able to hold their
ground, sometimes forced to give way. The Hebrew tribes, for their part,
were, on the whole, too ready to live at peace and to yield not a little
for the sake of peace. Intermarriages made their position safer, and
they intermarried with Amorites, Hivites, Perizzites. Interchange of
goods was profitable, and they engaged in barter. The observance of
frontiers and covenants helped to make things smooth, and they agreed on
boundary lines of territory and terms of fraternal intercourse. The
acknowledgment of their neighbours' religion was the next thing, and
from that they did not shrink. The new neighbours were practically
superior to themselves in many ways, well-informed as to the soil, the
climate, the methods of tillage necessary in the land, well able to
teach useful arts and simple manufactures. Little by little the debasing
notions and bad customs that infest pagan society entered Hebrew homes.
Comfort and prosperity came; but comfort was dearly bought with loss of
pureness, and prosperity with loss of faith. The watchwords of unity
were forgotten by many. But for the sore oppressions of which the
Mesopotamian was the first the tribes would have gradually lost all
coherence and vigour and become like those poor tatters of races that
dragged out an inglorious existence between Jordan and the Mediterranean
plain.
Yet it is with nations as with men; those that have a reason of
existence and the desire to realize it, even at intervals, may fall away
into pitiful languor if corrupted by prosperity, but when the need comes
their spirit will be renewed. While Hivites, Perizzites and even
Amorites had practically nothing to live for, but only cared to live,
the Hebrews felt oppression and restraint in their inmost marrow. What
the faithful servants of God among them urged in vain the iron heel of
Cushan-rishathaim made them remember and realize that they had a God
from Whom they were basely departing, a birthright they were selling for
pottage. In Doubting Castle, under the chains of Despair, they bethought
them of the Almighty and His ancient promises, they cried unto the Lord.
And it was not the cry of an afflicted church; Israel was far from
deserving that name. Rather was it the cry of a prodigal people scarcely
daring to hope that the Father would forgive and save.
Nothing yet found in the records of Babylon or Assyria throws any light
on the invasion of Cushan-rishathaim, whose name, which seems to mean
Cushan of the Two Evil Deeds, may be taken to represent his character as
the Hebrews viewed it. He was a king one of whose predecessors a few
centuries before had given a daughter in marriage to the third Amenophis
of Egypt, and with her the Aramaean religion to the Nile valley. At that
time Mesopotamia, or Aram-Naharaim, was one of the greatest monarchies
of western Asia. Stretching along the Euphrates from the Khabour river
towards Carchemish and away to the highlands of Armenia, it embraced the
district in which Terah and Abram first settled when the family migrated
from Ur of the Chaldees. In the days of the judges of Israel, however,
the glory of Aram had faded. The Assyrians threatened its eastern
frontier, and about 1325 B.C., the date at which we have now arrived,
they laid waste the valley of the Khabour. We can suppose that the
pressure of this rising empire was one cause of the expedition of Cushan
towards the western sea.
It remains a question, however, why the Mesopotamian king should have
been allowed to traverse the land of the Hittites, either by way of
Damascus or the desert route that led past Tadmor, in order to fall on
the Israelites; and there is this other question, What led him to think
of attacking Israel especially among the dwellers in Canaan? In pursuing
these inquiries we have at least presumption to guide us. Carchemish on
the Euphrates was a great Hittite fortress commanding the fords of that
deep and treacherous river. Not far from it, within the Mesopotamian
country, was Pethor, which was at once a Hittite and an Aramaean
town--Pethor the city of Balaam with whom the Hebrews had had to reckon
shortly before they entered Canaan. Now Cushan-rishathaim, reigning in
this region, occupied the middle ground between the Hittites and Assyria
on the east, also between them and Babylon on the south-east; and it is
probable that he was in close alliance with the Hittites. Suppose then
that the Hittite king, who at first regarded the Hebrews with
indifference, was now beginning to view them with distrust or to fear
them as a people bent on their own ends, not to be reckoned on for help
against Egypt, and we can easily see that he might be more than ready to
assist the Mesopotamians in their attack on the tribes. To this we may
add a hint which is derived from Balaam's connection with Pethor, and
the kind of advice he was in the way of giving to those who consulted
him. Does it not seem probable enough that some counsel of his survived
his death and now guided the action of the king of Aram? Balaam, by
profession a soothsayer, was evidently a great political personage of
his time, foreseeing, crafty and vindictive. Methods of his for
suppressing Israel, the force of whose genius he fully recognised, were
perhaps sold to more than one kingly employer. "The land of the children
of his people" would almost certainly keep his counsel in mind and seek
to avenge his death. Thus against Israel particularly among the dwellers
in Canaan the arms of Cushan-rishathaim would be directed, and the
Hittites, who scarcely found it needful to attack Israel for their own
safety, would facilitate his march.
Here then we may trace the revival of a feud which seemed to have died
away fifty years before. Neither nations nor men can easily escape from
the enmity they have incurred and the entanglements of their history.
When years have elapsed and strifes appear to have been buried in
oblivion, suddenly, as if out of the grave, the past is apt to arise and
confront us, sternly demanding the payment of its reckoning. We once did
another grievous wrong, and now our fondly cherished belief that the man
we injured had forgotten our injustice is completely dispelled. The old
anxiety, the old terror breaks in afresh upon our lives. Or it was in
doing our duty that we braved the enmity of evil-minded men and punished
their crimes. But though they have passed away their bitter hatred
bequeathed to others still survives. Now the battle of justice and
fidelity has to be fought over again, and well is it for us if we are
found ready in the strength of God.
And, in another aspect, how futile is the dream some indulge of getting
rid of their history, passing beyond the memory or resurrection of what
has been. Shall Divine forgiveness obliterate those deeds of which we
have repented? Then the deeds being forgotten the forgiveness too would
pass into oblivion and all the gain of faith and gratitude it brought
would be lost. Do we expect never to retrace in memory the way we have
travelled? As well might we hope, retaining our personality, to become
other men than we are. The past, good and evil, remains and will remain,
that we may be kept humble and moved to ever-increasing thankfulness and
fervour of soul. We rise "on stepping-stones of our dead selves to
higher things," and every forgotten incident by which moral education
has been provided for must return to light. The heaven we hope for is
not to be one of forgetfulness, but a state bright and free through
remembrance of the grace that saved us at every stage and the
circumstances of our salvation. As yet we do not half know what God has
done for us, what His providence has been. There must be a resurrection
of old conflicts, strifes, defeats and victories in order that we may
understand the grace which is to keep us safe for ever.
Attacked by Cushan of the Two Crimes the Israelites were in evil case.
They had not the consciousness of Divine support which sustained them
once. They had forsaken Him whose presence in the camp made their arms
victorious. Now they must face the consequences of their fathers' deeds
without their fathers' heavenly courage. Had they still been a united
nation full of faith and hope, the armies of Aram would have assailed
them in vain. But they were without the spirit which the crisis
required. For eight years the northern tribes had to bear a sore
oppression, soldiers quartered in their cities, tribute exacted at the
point of the sword, their harvests enjoyed by others. The stern lesson
was taught them that Canaan was to be no peaceful habitation for a
people that renounced the purpose of its existence. The struggle became
more hopeless year by year, the state of affairs more wretched. So at
last the tribes were driven by stress of persecution and calamity to
call again on the name of God, and some faint hope of succour broke like
a misty morning over the land.
It was from the far south that help came in response to the piteous cry
of the oppressed in the north; the deliverer was Othniel, who has
already appeared in the history. After his marriage with Achsah,
daughter of Caleb, we must suppose him living as quietly as possible in
his south-lying farm, there increasing in importance year by year till
now he is a respected chief of the tribe of Judah. In frequent
skirmishes with Arab marauders from the wilderness he has distinguished
himself, maintaining the fame of his early exploit. Better still, he is
one of those who have kept the great traditions of the nation, a man
mindful of the law of God, deriving strength of character from
fellowship with the Almighty. "The Spirit of Jehovah came upon him and
he judged Israel; and he went out to war, and Jehovah delivered
Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand."