MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN
On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the Hebrew shepherds. New
arts to learn, new crops to raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and
weave, new kinds of food to cook--all this helped to make life more
interesting and worth while. But there were other lessons which
newcomers might learn which were not so wholesome.
Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the wisest of the
Hebrews always feared. The wine which they made in those foaming
wine-presses was, of course, mild and harmless as compared with the
distilled liquors of modern times. But even Canaanitish wine could
deaden men's consciences and make them more like beasts than men.
"Wine is a mocker," said one of the sages who wrote the book of
Proverbs, "strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is
not wise."
IDOLATRY IN CANAAN
Canaanite religion was to a large extent an unwholesome influence. The
Canaanites worshiped many gods. Each village had its Baal, or lord,
who had to be bribed with burnt offerings of fat beasts, or (as they
thought) the soil would lose its fertility and the crops would fail.
=Dangerous examples.=--These sacrificial rites were carried on in the
shrines or "high places," one of which stood outside almost every
village and town. They often were accompanied by dances and other
performances which were licentious and degrading. The Hebrews, of
course, were pledged to worship only Jehovah. Moreover, during these
first centuries in Canaan they were very poor, and had little time for
the carousals which went on at the "high places" in the name of
religion. Corruption usually comes with wealth and luxury. Poverty and
hardship are often useful safeguards. But from the beginning these
heathen rites were a temptation and a snare in the lives of the
Hebrews.
CANAANITE BELIEFS ABOUT THE WORLD
There are certain questions which awaken the curiosity of everyone.
How did this wonderful world come into existence? How is it that you
and I happen to be here? How did things in general come to be as they
are? Some of these difficult questions are to-day being partly
answered by careful students of science. In ancient times there was
little or no science, yet in every country there were certain answers
to these questions handed down from generation to generation and
generally accepted as true.
=Idolatrous stories of creation.=--When the Hebrews entered Canaan
they naturally were inclined to accept the ideas of the earlier
inhabitants of that country, whose knowledge in regard to many matters
was far beyond theirs. The Canaanites in turn had got most of their
ideas from the leading civilized nations of that day, the Egyptians,
and especially the Babylonians. From these sources had come certain
stories about the beginning of things.
Babylonian traders in the inns of Canaan used to tell a story of the
creation of the world, and also about a great flood which the gods
once sent upon the earth.
=How the Hebrews retold these stories.=--The best men among the
Hebrews knew that these stories were imperfect. Their forty years
training in the wilderness had made them wise in the ways of God. This
wisdom enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff. They retold
these stories, omitting the error, and retaining the truth. Thus we
come to have the wonderful stories of the creation and the flood as we
find them in the Bible.
=How these stories were handed down.=--In the earliest days of the
settlement in Canaan very few Hebrews, if any, could read or write.
Possibly Moses understood the Egyptian picture-writing, or the
wedge-shaped letters of the Babylonian clay tablets. The Hebrew
letters, however, in which the books of the Old Testament afterward
were written, were invented by the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians
passed on their invention to the old Canaanites.
After the Hebrews came it was not long before ambitious Hebrew boys
and girls were staring at the queer marks in the inscriptions which
they found here and there, over the gates of Canaanite cities or on
the tombs of Canaanite kings. Gradually they learned to spell out
syllables, words, and sentences, and then they learned to copy these
same letters, so that in time the Hebrews were making inscriptions and
books of their own. Among the earliest of these books was one
containing the stories of the creation and the flood. They had been
handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, until
finally they were gathered into a book. This became a part of the book
of Genesis in our Bible.
NEW TENDENCIES TO SELFISHNESS IN CANAAN
Another and different kind of temptation which the Hebrews met in
Canaan was the tendency to forget their own tribal brothers as they
scattered here and there and settled down, each family with its own
little farm. There were some, naturally, who were more successful as
farmers than others. And those who were unfortunate were not always
the lazy or thriftless. Sickness or accident or some pest which
attacked the grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the entire
property of one of those little peasant farmers and leave him and his
children face to face with starvation and death. Now, in the old days
in the desert, as long as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of
water, the weakest and poorest could count on a share. But here in
Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did not always feel so surely
the sheltering arms of kindness and brotherhood.
=Humane laws enacted.=--Yet the spirit of Moses still lived and made
its power felt. Certain laws gradually came to be accepted during this
period when the Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a
special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the great leader
would have chosen. We can imagine how these laws were first proclaimed
by the chiefs of the clans and the elders of the villages wherever
there were men who remembered how, years before, the whole nation had
been poor and oppressed and enslaved. Here are some examples:
="Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If
thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I
will surely hear their cry."=
="If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is
poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall
ye lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's
garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him before the
sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, it is his
garment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? And it shall
come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I
am gracious."=
="Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages
of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until
the morning."=
There is one law which illustrates especially well how the best men
among the Hebrews tried to meet the new temptations of Canaan in the
spirit of kindness and justice which they had learned from Moses.
="When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not
wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou
gather the gleaning of the harvest. And thou shalt not glean
thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of
thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the
stranger."=
It was already the custom among the Canaanites to leave the grain in
the corners of the fields uncut, and not to pick up the scattered
gleanings, which fell from the arms of the harvesters, and to leave on
the ground the fruit that fell of itself from the vines and fruit
trees. With the Canaanites this was on account of a superstition; the
gleanings and the grain in the corners of the fields were for the
Baal, or god of the field. If they were taken he would be angry. The
Hebrews kept the old custom, but with a different aim--not to keep the
Baal in good humor, but to make life a bit easier for the poor and
unfortunate among their own neighbors. It was in accordance with this
law that Ruth, although a foreigner, was allowed to glean after the
reapers in the barley field of Boaz of Bethlehem, and thus obtained
food to keep herself and her mother alive. So among these lowly people
were being laid the foundations of that greater and better
civilization for which Moses had prepared the way, and of which
Abraham had dimly dreamed.
STUDY TOPICS
1. What parts of this chapter illustrate the special talent of the
Hebrews for discovering good in things partly evil?
2. How could this talent be used in our American life? For example, in
the matter of moving picture shows?
3. Read Leviticus 19. This chapter contains laws which were made
during the period of the settlement in Canaan. Which of them seem to
you to be in the spirit of Moses?