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HEBREW LIFE AND
TIMES
HAROLD B. HUNTING
ABINGDON-COKESBURY PRESS
NEW YORK NASHVILLE
Copyright, MCMXXI, by
HAROLD B. HUNTING
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD 7
I. SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT 9
II. HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS 15
III. DESERT PILGRIMS 22
IV. A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY 28
V. A GREAT DELIVERANCE 34
VI. FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN 39
VII. LEARNING TO BE FARMERS 44
VIII. VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN 49
IX. KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT 55
X. MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN 60
XI. LESSONS IN COOPERATION 66
XII. EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT 70
XIII. THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON 76
XIV. THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS 82
XV. A NEW KIND OF RELIGION 88
XVI. A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP 94
XVII. JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER 99
XVIII. ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES 103
XIX. A REVISED LAW OF MOSES 108
XX. A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE 114
XXI. KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND 120
XXII. UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS 127
XXIII. THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH 134
XXIV. HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP 140
XXV. A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM 146
XXVI. A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM 151
XXVII. OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS 155
XXVIII. BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS 161
XXIX. NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM 167
XXX. THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE 172
XXXI. JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS 176
XXXII. A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST 182
REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS 185
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS,
One of the Earliest Specimens of Coined Money 10
ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES 10
HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES 10
BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT
CANAANITE CITY 16
CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (Clay) 16
CANAANITE SILVER LADLE 16
CANAANITE FORKS 16
EGYPTIAN PLOWING 44
EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING 44
EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR 44
AN EGYPTIAN REAPING 48
CANAANITE HOES 48
CANAANITE SICKLE 48
CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES 48
MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING 52
ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY 52
HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE 52
SMALLER KEY 52
CANAANITE CHISEL (Bronze) 76
CANAANITE FILE 76
VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE KNIVES 76
BRONZE HAMMERHEAD 76
BONE AWL HANDLE 76
A FISH-HOOK 76
CANAANITE WHETSTONES 76
CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS 76
REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO 134
PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA 134
CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE 144
AN EGYPTIAN HARP 144
AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP 144
AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP 144
A BABYLONIAN HARP 144
JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D. 144
ASSYRIAN DULCIMER 144
FOREWORD
Most histories have been histories of kings and emperors. The daily
life of the common people--their joys and sorrows, their hopes,
achievements, and ideals--has been buried in oblivion. The historical
narratives of the Bible are, indeed, to a great extent an exception to
this rule. They tell us much about the everyday life of peasants and
slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were not kings nor nobles. Its
supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not always studied
the Bible from this point of view. In this course we shall try to
reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people as an account
of Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such like: what oppressions they
endured; how they were delivered; and above all what ideals of
righteousness and truth and mercy they cherished, and how they came to
think and feel about God. It makes little difference to us what
particular idler at any particular time sat in the palace at Jerusalem
sending forth tax-collectors to raise funds for his luxuries. It is of
very great interest and concern to us if there were daughters like
Ruth in the barley fields of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their
flocks in that same country who were so fine in heart and simple in
faith that to them or their children visions of angels might appear
telling of a Saviour of the world. On such as these, in this study,
let us as far as possible fix our attention.
CHAPTER I
SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT
Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as
the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land
surrounding the great central desert lived the Phoenicians, the
Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the
Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there
been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of Abraham, are
Semites.
The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They
began their career as a tribe of shepherds on the border of the north
Arabian desert. The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents
and wandering to and fro on the fringes of the settled territory of
Palestine, or to the south and west of Bagdad, represent almost
perfectly what the wandering Hebrew shepherds used to be.
The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas Abraham's warriors
cut down their enemies with bronze swords. Otherwise, in customs,
superstitions, and even to some extent in language, the modern desert
Arabs may stand for the ancient Hebrews in their earliest period. They
were nomads with no settled homes. Every rainy season they led out
their flocks into the valleys where the fresh green of the new grass
was crowding back the desert brown. All through the spring and early
summer they went from spring to spring, and from pasture to pasture
seeking the greenest and tenderest grass. Then as the dry season came
on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their way
back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them
selling their wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange
for wheat and barley and some of the other necessaries of life.
THE SHEPHERD'S DAILY LIFE
Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat
monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the
pastures. Morning and night they had to be watered, the water being
drawn from the well and poured into watering troughs. Once or twice a
day also the ewes and shegoats had to be milked. When these chores
were done it was only necessary to stand guard over the flock and
protect them from robbers or wild animals. This, however, had to be
done by night as well as by day. On these wide pastures there were no
sheepfolds into which the animals could be securely herded as on the
settled farms. They slept on the ground, under the open sky, and the
shepherds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus' birth, had
to keep "watch over their flocks by night." So long as no enemies
appeared there was in such an occupation plenty of time in which to
think and dream of God and man and love and duty. Very often, however,
the dreamer's reveries were interrupted, and at such times there was
no lack of excitement.
=Wild beasts.=--There were more beasts of prey in Arabia in those days
than there are to-day. In addition to wolves and bears, there were
many lions, which are not now found anywhere in the world except in
Africa. So the sheepmen had to go well armed, with clubs, swords, and
spears. We would want a high-powered rifle if we were in danger of
facing a lion. The Hebrews defended their flocks against these
powerful and vicious beasts with only the simplest weapons. Such
fights were anything but monotonous.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| [Illustration: A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS, ONE |
| OF THE EARLIEST SPECIMENS OF COINED MONEY] |
| |
| [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES] |
| |
| [Illustration: HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES] |
| |
| Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
| Fund. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
TRIPS TO TOWN
Among the most interesting events in the lives of the shepherds were
their trips to town, when they sold some of their wool and bought
grain, and linen cloth, and trinkets for the babies, and the things
they could not find nor make on the grassy plains. The raw wool was
packed in bags and slung over the backs of donkeys. On other donkeys
rode two or more of the men of the tribe. Sometimes, perhaps, a small
boy was taken along on the donkey's back behind his father to see the
sights. And for him the sights must have been rather wonderful--the
great thick walls of the town, the massive gates, the houses, row on
row, and the people, more of them in one street than in the whole
tribe to which he belonged!
=The market.=--They took their wool, of course, to the open square
where all the merchants sold their goods. Soon buyers appeared who
wanted wool. It was a long process then, as now, to strike a bargain
in an Oriental town. It is very impolite to seem to be in a hurry. You
must each ask after one another's health, and the health of your
respective fathers, and all your ancestors. By and by, you cautiously
come around to the subject of wool. How much do you want for your
wool? At first you don't name a price. You aren't even sure that you
want to sell it. Finally you mention a sum about five times as large
as you expect to get. The buyer in turn offers to pay about a fifth of
what it is worth. After a time you come down a bit on your price. The
buyer comes up a bit on his. After an hour or two, or perhaps a half
a day, you compromise and the wool is sold.
=Weighing out the silver or gold.=--In those early days there was no
coined money. Silver and gold were used as money, only they had to be
weighed every time a trade was put through; just as though we were to
sell so many pounds of flour for so many ounces of silver. The weights
used were very crude; usually they were merely rough stones from the
field with the weight mark scratched on them. The scale generally used
was as follows:
60 shekels = 1 mana.
60 manas = 1 talent.
The shekel was equal to about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois
system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers
tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to
cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for
selling. So when our shepherds came to town, they had to watch the
merchant who bought from them lest he put too heavy a talent weight in
the balance with their wool, and too light a shekel-weight in the
smaller balance with the silver.
THE HARD SIDE OF SHEPHERD LIFE
The most precious and uncertain thing in the shepherd's life was
water. If in the rainy season the rains were heavy, and the wells and
brooks did not dry up too soon in the summer, they had plenty of
goat's milk for food, and could bring plenty of wool to market in the
fall. But if the rains were scant their flocks perished, and actual
famine and death stared them in the face. In the dry years many were
the tribes that were almost totally wiped out by famine and the
diseases that sweep away hungry men. The next year, on the site of
their last camp, strangers would find the bones of men and women and
little children, whitening by the side of the trail. No wonder they
looked upon wells and springs as sacred. Surely, they thought, a god
must be the giver of those life-giving waters that bubble up so
mysteriously from the crevices in the rock.
=War with other tribes.=--In addition to their constant struggle to
make a living from a somewhat barren land, these shepherds were almost
constantly in danger from human enemies. A small, weak tribe, grazing
its flocks around a good well, was always in danger lest a stronger
tribe swoop down upon them to kill and plunder. There were many robber
clans who did little else besides preying on their neighbors and
passing caravans of traders. Nowhere was there any security. The
desert and its borders was a world of bitter hatreds and long-standing
feuds. Certain rival tribes fought each other at every opportunity for
centuries with a warfare that hesitated at no cruelty or treachery.
DESERT RELIGION
Such a life of eager longings, fierce passions, and dark despair is a
fertile soil for religion. And these early Hebrew shepherds were
intensely religious. It is true that in the earliest days the
fierceness and cruelty of their wars were reflected in the character
of the gods in whom they believed. They thought of them as doing many
cruel and selfish things. Yet a people who believe very deeply and
seriously in their religion, even in an imperfect religion, are sure
to be a force in the world. Hence it is not surprising that three of
the world's greatest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and
Mohammedanism, arose at different times among the wandering shepherds
of Arabia.
STUDY TOPICS
It would be well to keep a notebook in which to write the result of
your study.
1. Look up in any Bible dictionary, under "Weights and Measures," the
approximate size of an "ephah," which was the common Hebrew unit of
dry measure, and "hin," which was their common unit for measuring
liquids.
2. From the facts given in this chapter, calculate in pounds
avoirdupois, the approximate weight of a talent.
3. To what extent does the Old Testament reflect the experiences of
shepherd life? Look up "shepherd" in any concordance.
4. What are some valuable lessons which great spiritual teachers among
the Hebrews learned from their shepherd life? Read Psalm 23.