THE HEBREWS IN THE DESERT.
The fortunes and achievements of the Israelites after leaving Egypt and
escaping the pursuit of the Egyptians, are narrated in the second,
third, and fourth books of the Pentateuch in the following manner. From
the reed-sea the Israelites marched into the wilderness of Shur, and for
three days found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink
the water there, because it was bitter. Then Jehovah showed Moses a
piece of wood, and he threw it into the water, so that the water became
sweet. From Marah they came to Elim, where were twelve wells and seventy
palm-trees, and they encamped there by the water. From Elim they came
into the wilderness of Sin, and the people murmured against Moses,
because there was no food to be found; but at evening Jehovah caused
swarms of quails to rise which covered the camp, and in the morning
manna had fallen, which lay like hoar frost upon the ground, and the
people were allowed to gather manna for six days, but on the seventh
they were not allowed to gather it. And Israel set forth from the
wilderness of Sin and encamped at Rephidim. There there was no water to
drink, and the people were angry with Moses; but Jehovah said to Moses:
Take thy staff with which thou didst smite the Nile; thou shalt smite
the rock, and the water shall flow forth. And Moses did so before all
Israel, and they called the name of the place Massah and Meribah. And
Amalek came and strove with Israel in Rephidim, and was smitten down
with the edge of the sword. And Jethro, the priest of Midian, the
father-in-law of Moses, came and advised Moses to choose valiant men for
his helpers, as overseers over the people and judges for the matters of
smaller moment. And Moses did so.
In the third month after the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites set forth
from Rephidim, and came into the desert of Sinai, and encamped over
against the mountain. The people were commanded to purify themselves and
wash their garments, and Moses forbad any one to approach the mountain.
On the third day, when it was morning, there was thunder and lightning,
and a thick cloud stood upon the mountain, and there was a mighty sound
of trumpets. And all the people heard the thunder and saw the flames and
the smoking mountain, and the mountain quaked, and all trembled. But
Moses led them to meet Jehovah at the foot of the mountain. And Jehovah
came down to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. For forty days
and forty nights Moses was on the mountain, and Jehovah revealed to him
his laws, and the finger of God wrote them on two stone tables. And
Jehovah spoke to Moses out of the darkness, and told him all the
ordinances which he should lay upon the people. But the cloud covered
the mountain, and the glory of Jehovah was a consuming fire on the top
of the mountain.
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain,
the people said to Aaron: We know not what has happened to the man who
led us out of Egypt; make us a god to go before us. And Aaron said to
them: Take off the golden rings which are in the ears of your wives,
your daughters, and your sons. They brought him the rings, and he made
of them a golden calf, and built an altar before the calf. Then they
said: That is the god, who led us out of Egypt; and Aaron caused a
festival to be proclaimed to Jehovah, and they brought a thank-offering
to the calf, and the people ate and drank and stood up to dance. But
when Moses came down from the mountain with the stone tablets in his
hand, and heard the singing and shouting, and saw the calf and the
dancing, his anger was kindled. He cast the tables out of his hand, and
broke them at the foot of the mountain, and took the calf, and burned it
with fire, and ground it to dust, and strewed it on the water, and made
the children of Israel drink it. And Moses came into the entrance of the
camp and cried: Come to me, all who belong to Jehovah. Then the
descendants of Levi gathered round him. Take everyone his sword at his
side, he said to them; go from one gate of the camp to the other, and
slay every man his brother, his friend, and his neighbour. And there
fell on that day about 3,000 men of the people.
On the next morning Moses said: Ye have sinned a great sin; I will go up
to Jehovah, perhaps I can appease him for your sin. And Jehovah said to
Moses: Hew two stone tables like the others, and be ready in the
morning, and appear before me on the top of the mountain. And Moses was
there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights, and ate no bread, and
drank no water, and he wrote on the tables the ten commandments. Then he
came down with the two tables of the law in his hand, and told the
people the commandments which Jehovah had given him, and the laws; and
the people answered: All that Jehovah has commanded we will do. Then
Moses built an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes. And the
young men slew burnt-offerings and thank-offerings, and the half of the
blood Moses sprinkled on the altar, and with the other half he sprinkled
the people, and said: This is the blood of the covenant which Jehovah
makes with you over all laws.
Then Moses set up the tent of the assembly for a sanctuary of Jehovah,
that He might dwell in their midst, as Jehovah had commanded, with
planks of acacia wood on silver feet, and fastened them with silver
bars; and on them he placed a cover of woven cloth of byssus, of a
purple colour, and over this a second roof of red sheep-skins and
seal-skins, and divided the tent by a curtain of blue and red purple,
and carmine, and byssus, with cherubs woven upon it. And in the tent
behind the second curtain he placed the ark of the law, as Jehovah had
commanded, of acacia wood, overlaid with pure gold, and placed the law
in the ark. Then Moses made a table of acacia wood, overlaid with pure
gold, and placed bowls of pure gold upon it for the drink-offerings, and
laid the sacrificial bread upon the table. And he made a candlestick of
pure gold, with seven lamps, three on the one side and three on the
other side of the candlestick. Then he made the altar of incense of
acacia wood, overlaid with gold; and the altar of burnt sacrifice of
acacia wood, as Jehovah commanded, and overlaid it with copper; and made
the curtains for the court and the poles for the curtains of copper. The
Israelites brought what was necessary for the erection and adornment of
the shrine, and gave their nose-rings, ear-rings, seals, and ear-drops.
And Moses made Aaron and his sons priests, and anointed the altars and
all utensils with holy ointment, and sanctified the fire on the altar,
and offered burnt-offerings. But two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu,
brought strange fire before Jehovah; then fire went forth from Jehovah
and consumed them, and they died before Him. And the glory of Jehovah
filled His habitation, and the cloud covered the tent of assembly; and
when the cloud rose, the children of Israel set forth, and by night
there was fire in the cloud.
In the second year after the exodus from Egypt, in the second month, on
the twentieth day of the month, the cloud rose from the dwelling of the
law, and the children of Israel set forth on their march out of the
desert of Sinai, from the mountain of Jehovah, and they went three days'
journey, and the cloud halted in the wilderness of Paran. And Jehovah
bade Moses send men to search out the land of Canaan--one for each tribe
from among the leaders. And from Ephraim Moses sent Joshua the son of
Nun; and from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. Then the
twelve princes set forth at the time of the first grapes, and came to
Hebron and to the valley of Eshcol, and there cut a bunch of grapes and
a vine, and carried them on a pole between two; and they also took of
the pomegranates and the figs. After forty days they returned, and said
to the people: The land into which you sent us flows with milk and
honey, and these are its fruits. But the people is mighty, and their
cities are large and fortified, and Amalek dwells in the land to the
south, and the Hittites, and Jebusites, and Amorites dwell on the
mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and on the side of
Jordan. And Caleb said: We will go up and overpower them; but the others
said: We cannot go up against that people, for they are mightier than
we; and the sons of Israel cried: Why should we fall by the sword, and
our wives and children fall into the hand of the enemy; is it not better
to return to Egypt? Then Jehovah said to Moses: All those who have
murmured against me shall not enter into the land wherein I have lifted
up my hand to cause you to dwell. Your bodies shall lie in the desert,
save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun; and your
children shall pasture their flocks in the desert forty years: forty
years shall my face be turned from you. And Moses told these words to
the children of Israel. But the Israelites ventured to rise up and went
to the heights of the mountains on the way towards Atharim. But the
Amalekites and Canaanites who dwelt on the mountains came down and smote
them, and scattered them as far as Hormah.
And Korah of the tribe of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram of the tribe of
Reuben, and two hundred and fifty of the foremost men, heads of families
and officers of the community, assembled themselves against Moses and
Aaron, and said: Why do ye lift yourselves up against the people? And to
Moses they said: Is it not enough that thou hast led us out of Egypt, to
slay us in the desert? Wilt thou also make thyself a ruler over us? But
the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up. On the next morning
the people murmured in the assembly against Moses and Aaron, and said:
Ye have slain them. But Jehovah said to Moses: Go out from this company;
I will destroy them suddenly. Then the plague began. At Moses' command
Aaron took the censer of incense and offered incense to purify the
children of Israel; and he stood between the living and the dead, and
the plague was stayed. But there died fourteen thousand and seven
hundred.
The children of Israel came into the wilderness of Sin, and Moses sent
messengers to the king of Edom, saying: Let us pass through thy land; we
will go along the highway, and turn neither to the right hand nor to the
left. But Edom went to meet them with mighty hosts and a powerful hand,
and Israel retired before him, and went from Kadesh to Mount Hor, and
from Mount Hor to the reed-sea. Then the people became impatient on the
way, and murmured against Moses, and Jehovah sent the serpents, the
saraphs, among the people, and many died. Then the Israelites saw that
they had sinned, and Moses prayed for the people and made a serpent of
copper, and set it up on a pole, and all who were bitten by the serpents
and looked upon the image of copper were saved. From the reed-sea the
Israelites went again to the north, towards Oboth and Beer, to the well
which the princes dug. Then Israel sang: "Rise up, O fountain, meet him
with songs; O well which the princes dug, which the nobles of the people
hollowed out with their sceptre and their staves." And from Beer they
went to Bamoth, and from Bamoth to Pisgah, which rises over the desert.
And Sihon, king of the Amorites, who dwelt in his city at Heshbon,
gathered all his people and went to meet Israel in the desert, and came
towards Jahaz, and strove with Israel. Then Israel smote him with the
edge of the sword, laid waste the land, and took the cities. And Israel
sang: "Fire went forth from Heshbon, and flames from the city of Sihon;
we shot at them, we laid waste the land to Nophah, we burnt it with
fire to Medeba." Then the Israelites turned and went up against Og, the
king of the Amorites of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth Karnaim, and smote
him at Edrei, and his sons and all his people, and his cities were
taken, and not a fugitive escaped. From Bashan Israel went southwards,
and encamped in the plains of Moab at Shittim; and they began to commit
whoredom with the daughters of Moab, and served Baal Peor. And Phinehas,
the grandson of Aaron, pierced with his spear Zimri, a captain of the
tribe of Simeon, as he lay with a Midianitish woman, and slew both with
one thrust through the belly. And Jehovah said to Moses: Go up to Mount
Abarim and see the land which I have given to the children of Israel,
and when thou hast seen it, thou shalt be gathered to thy people. Take
Joshua, the son of Nun, and lay thy hand on him, and place him before
Eleazar the priest (the son of Aaron), and before all the people, so
that all may obey him; and Eleazar shall inquire of Jehovah for him, and
as he commands he shall go out and in. And Moses did as Jehovah
commanded. And the sons of Reuben and Gad said to Moses: The land which
Jehovah has smitten before Israel is a land for flocks, and thy servants
have flocks; and to them, and half of the tribe of Manasseh, Moses gave
the land of Gilead. And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to the top
of Pisgah, over against Jericho, and Jehovah caused him to see the whole
land from Gilead to Dan, and from Jericho to Zoar. And there Moses died,
a hundred and twenty years old. But his eyes were not dim, nor had his
strength forsaken him. The Israelites mourned for Moses thirty days in
the plains of Moab, and henceforth there was no prophet in Israel like
Moses; and to this day no man knows the grave of Moses.
In those portions which deal with the abode and fortunes of the Hebrews
in the desert, the two texts were less closely combined, and the
contradictions are more numerous, than in the other parts. The two
narratives are interpolated each into the other, and the additions of
the reviser are more prominent than elsewhere. An ancient record,
embodied in the first text, gives a list of the places where the
Israelites pitched their tents between Egypt and the Jordan. The
statements do not agree with the narrative in its present condition. In
the first text the Midianites manifestly dwell to the east of the
Jordan. It represents the Israelites as taking vengeance upon them,
because they had seduced Israel to a heathenish ritual; first by the act
of Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, whose seed in consequence received
"the everlasting covenant of the priesthood," and then by the war which
cost the Midianites a vast booty of sheep, oxen, asses, and thousands of
prisoners.[650] In the Ephraimitic text the Midianites dwell on Sinai;
hither Moses fled to the Midianites from Egypt; he married the daughter
of the priest of the Midianites, and stands in most friendly relations
with them. This text represents the seduction of the Israelites as the
work not of the Midianites, but of the Moabites; and subsequently
narrates the victories over the Moabites of Heshbon and Bashan. How the
first text described the conquest of the land of Gilead we cannot any
longer ascertain; that it dealt with the subject is beyond
question.[651]
The setting up of the golden calf at Sinai is inconceivable in the
connection in which the narrative places it. While Jehovah's glory is
visible on Sinai, and proclaims itself in thunder and lightning, would
the people, and Aaron at their head, have required an image of God, and
offered prayer to it? When after the death of Solomon the ten tribes
founded their independent kingdom Jehovah was worshipped among them in
the form of a bull, in contrast to the worship of the kingdom of Judah.
To stigmatise this worship, wherein priests of the family which claimed
to be derived from Aaron may have taken part from the first, as
objectionable, the prophetic revision has interpolated the adoration of
the golden calf and the punishment of such idolatry; and from this the
second ascent of Sinai by Moses came into the narrative. The account of
the saraphs and the setting up of the brazen serpent belongs to the
Ephraimitic text.[652] At Jerusalem there was a serpent of brass, which
was thought to have come down from Moses.[653]
It was the fixed belief of the Hebrews that it was only by the immediate
help of Jehovah that their forefathers had been able to escape the power
of Egypt. And this was not the only thing done for their fathers; they
had afterwards gained abodes to the east and west of the Jordan, and
from the wilderness they had come into a land flowing with milk and
honey. Here, also, the help of Jehovah had been shown forth mightily for
his people, against the old and powerful cities, and the mountain
fortresses of Canaan. Obviously Jehovah had delivered his people out of
Egypt, in order to give them this beautiful and rich land for a
dwelling. But why had he not at once led them thither? Why did the
Israelites remain so long in the miserable wilderness? The
Israelites--so the first text explains this delay--received the account
of the spies with fear. This cowardly generation, therefore, must die
out. We saw above that the Hebrews reckoned the length of a generation
at forty years, and so the first text puts the sojourn in the desert at
forty years. We shall see below that this period is too short by some
decads of years. Moses and Aaron also did not reach Canaan, because, as
the first text says, "they sinned against Jehovah at the water of
strife, at Kadesh, in the wilderness of Sin," because "they rebelled
against his command at the water," an obstinacy which cannot be any
longer found in the revised narrative of this occurrence.[654] If Joshua
and Caleb are exempted from this decree, if they alone reach Canaan, it
was certain that Joshua had undertaken and carried out the attack upon
Canaan, that Caleb conquered Hebron and subjected the surrounding
district; his descendants were living there even in David's time in
princely wealth.
In the desert also Jehovah had taken care of his people; he had not
allowed them to perish there; he had sent quails and given them manna.
Even now long lines of quails pass over the Syrian steppes and the
wilderness of Sinai, and in the neighbourhood of Firan, manna, i.e. the
juice running from the branches and leaves of the tamarisk, is still
gathered.[655] Nor had Jehovah allowed water to fail in the midst of the
desert. Moses changed a bitter spring into sweet water. The story rests,
no doubt, on the name of the spring. Marah means bitter. At another
spring of the name of Meribah, _i.e._ strife (here Jehovah bade the
rocks give water), the rebellion of Moses and Aaron is said to have
taken place. The well of Beer, which the princes dug, cannot be any
other than the well of Beer Elim, _i.e._ the well of the strong,[656]
and the song which tradition connects with this place (p. 473) is
certainly very old, if not contemporary.
The law made known to Moses on Sinai forms the main portion of the
second, third, and fourth books of the Pentateuch. It not only contains
the fundamental moral rules, the ordinances of the law of family and
blood-feud, and the rubrics for the national worship; it is rather a law
for the priesthood, given in systematic detail, which fixes their
position, rights, and honours, the dress of their office, and the fees
for the sacrifice--a wide collection of regulations for the ritual of
sacrifice, descending into the smallest minutiae, the place of worship,
the instruments of sacrifice, the celebration of festivals, and the
arrangement of life in the future dwellings of the tribes. Could tribes
wandering in the desert have made rules for the celebration of the
festivals of sowing, of harvest, and of the vintage? Could they have
settled what part of the produce of the field should be given to the
priests, and how they should deal with the fallow time of the seventh
year of rest, and the reversion of the alienated land in the year of
Jubilee? Could dwellers in tents make regulations about receiving the
stranger in their gates, about cities of refuge and cities of the
Levites? And even if this had really taken place, how are we to explain
the fact that whole groups of arrangements for worship and life which
these laws prescribe were demonstrably not in existence among the
Hebrews in the centuries following their wandering? Laws are never
created except in connection with definite circumstances; no lawgiver
can anticipate the relations which the future will bring into
existence, and answer, _a priori_, the questions which will then arise.
It is therefore beyond doubt that views and tendencies of later
development and the results of a long course of growth have been
transferred to early times, the times of the exodus from Egypt. Those
early days had been an era of original piety, and the time of the exodus
had been a period in which the God of the fathers had guided and led
them with a mighty hand, in which he had announced to them his will
directly and without deception. The condition of religious service and
life, therefore, which was held to be the true and proper kind must have
been prescribed in those early days and have existed then; the ideal
after which men were to strive, and in the pursuit of which every
hindrance was to be removed, must have already existed in those days of
direct divine guidance. Thus ordinances and usages which arose
successively after the settlement in Canaan, were amalgamated with older
customs and rules, and united into one system, which seemed to the
priests the necessary system, appointed by God and pleasing to him. The
position which the first text ascribes to Aaron, and which the laws
attached to that text, give to the priests and Levites the prominence of
a centralised, rich, and even splendid ritual, and of a single place for
the worship of Jehovah, display the tendency which was active in the
priesthood, to concentrate the worship of Jehovah on a single spot, and
to obtain power in the state for the chief priests. The gorgeous
tabernacle erected near Mount Sinai with the portable altars for burnt
sacrifice and incense, the implements of sacrifice and the candlestick
of seven branches, can only have been taken from the tabernacle erected
by David, and afterwards from the temple of Solomon and its glory, the
sacred pattern of which ought to be recognised in the movable sanctuary
already erected by Moses on Mount Sinai. At the same time the rich
adornment of this pattern by the voluntary offerings of the Israelites
proved how ready the nation was at that time to honour their God and
dedicate their property to him. For these descriptions there was a
historical foundation in the fact that the Israelites had carried their
national sanctuary, the sacred ark, the Ark of the Covenant, into the
desert, that it had been placed under a movable tent, and before the
tent the heads of the tribes and the nation had gathered for sacrifice
and counsel. In the position of Aaron and his family we have a pattern
which brings clearly into light the attributes and advantages, the
rights and honours, which belonged to the chief priests and priests in
contrast to the Levites or servants of the temple. The fearful
punishments which awaited offences against ritual and neglect of the
priestly rules were strongly marked. Even two sons of Aaron, Nadab and
Abihu, die because they approach Jehovah with unconsecrated fire; and
when the Levite Korah, and Dathan and Abiram of the tribe of Reuben,
rebel against Moses and Aaron, they were swallowed up by the earth, and
Jehovah smites the people who follow them.[657] It is the ideal picture
of the priesthood, and arrangement of the Church, which those laws
exhibit, and transfer to that mighty time when Jehovah spoke to the
Israelites through Moses.
The intention of the Israelites in the exodus from Egypt could not at
first go further than the attempt to escape from the dominion of Egypt,
and resume the old free life in the desert. That the line of march at
first attempted to pass along the western shore of the reed-sea, and
reach the south of the peninsula of Sinai, in order to get as far as
possible from Egypt, place the whole length of the protecting arm of the
sea between the emigrants and Egypt, and reach the pasture lands of the
apparently friendly Midianites, corresponds to the situation. Nor can it
in any way surprise us that the Amalekites, as the Ephraimitic text
states, opposed the Hebrews, _i.e._ contested the possession of the
pasture-lands and oases of the wildernesses of Shur and Paran, with the
new-comers. The Israelites obtained the victory. So they arrived at
Sinai, the sacred mountain of the wilderness of Sin. Between the two
bays with which the sea encloses this peninsula, that mountain rises, a
naked granite ridge, with five steep peaks, united into a mighty crown,
above the plateau of sandstone which occupies the whole peninsula. The
height is 8,000 feet, and the wild and rugged mass overlooks in sublime
solitude the broad and desert flats in the north, and the waves of the
sea in the south. The beautiful oasis at the foot of the mountain (Wadi
Firan) affords nourishment for a large number of men and beasts.[658] On
the old and sacred mountain the Israelites might believe that they
approached nearer to their deity; that here thanksgiving and sacrifice
for their happy deliverance could best be offered to him. Then the
Israelites would pasture their flocks on the slopes and glades of the
peninsula. But they may have found but scanty food beside the flocks of
the Midianites, and the security from Egypt would be greater, if they
removed to a greater distance from that country. On the southern
borders of Canaan, at Kadesh and Hormah, they sought better pastures.
Yet they were driven back, and pursued as far as Hormah. After this
misadventure, the Israelites, according to the Ephraimitic text,
besought the king of Edom to allow them a peaceful passage through Edom,
"on the road of the king, they would not turn either to the right or the
left." Hence the defeat must have been a serious one.[659] The object of
this march through Edom can only have been to find new pasture-lands in
the Syrian steppes beyond Mount Seir on the east. The wide extent of the
Syrian desert would certainly supply sufficient pastures, and the
distance from the Nile was a good protection from Egypt. As the Edomites
refused the demand, and showed themselves prepared to resist the march
by force of arms, the Israelites did not venture to give battle; they
preferred to retire to the south, and make a long circuit round the
territory of the Edomites, by marching through the whole length of the
valley of Arabah southward to Elath, as far as the north-east point of
the reed-sea. From this point they passed to the other side of Mount
Seir, past Punon and Oboth, towards the Arnon, which falls into the Dead
Sea. If they could at first maintain themselves on the east, in the
desert, the uplands on the left bank of the Jordan were far better than
the steppes of the desert. The arms of the Israelites were here more
fortunate than on the other side of the Dead Sea. The Amorites of
Heshbon, eastward of the Dead Sea, were defeated at Jahaz, and their
cities taken. The song which celebrates this victory (p. 473) is old,
and above suspicion. From this point, out of the newly-conquered land,
from the top of Pisgah--a mountain near Heshbon--Moses is said to have
seen the promised land. A second victory over the Amorites lying to the
north beyond the Jabbok, the people of Edrei and Ashtaroth Karnaim,
opened ample pasture-lands to the Israelites, and also some well-watered
valleys on the wide plateau to the east of the Jordan. Their territory
now reached from the Arnon northwards to the Jarmuk. Here the nation
remained; the greater part tended their flocks as hitherto, the lesser
part applied themselves to agriculture in exceptionally fruitful
valleys.
Though a peaceful race of shepherds and unused to arms, the Hebrews had
bidden defiance to the strong arm of Pharaoh; with bold resolution they
had successfully delivered themselves from a cruel slavery; and had
preserved their freedom, their national character, and their religion.
Beyond the borders of Egypt and the reed-sea, the lively perception of
their liberation, and the recovery of their ancient mode of life, and of
the visible protection of their God, must have aroused a mighty impulse,
especially in their great leader. It was a moment of great elevation.
Together with the valley of the Nile, they had left behind the gods of
Egypt; and they returned to the worship of their old deity with
strengthened and deepened feelings. Thus on Sinai Moses could inculcate
the exclusive worship of Jehovah--a worship without images--and the
consecration of the seventh day.[660] These were commands consciously
and diametrically opposed to the multitude of Egyptian gods, the variety
of their forms and modes of worship, and the times of their festivals.
In connection with these commands, and the customs of sacrifice in use
among the Israelites, regulations were given for purification, and
rules, telling how to proceed at the erection of altars, at
purifications and expiations, at burnt-offerings, thank-offerings, and
offerings of corn and meal; rules which were preserved and developed in
the family of Aaron.[661] Even for the establishment of this ritual the
contrast to the Egyptian was not without influence. This contrast was in
fact so strong that what was best in the Egyptian religion--the belief
in the existence of the soul after death, and in its awaking from death
to a new life, was not adopted by the Israelites. Of the care shown to
the corpses of the dead in Egypt, we find no trace.
We saw what a long series of moral rules were set up in Egypt. For his
people Moses collected the foundations of moral and religious law into a
simpler, purer, deeper, and more earnest form, in the Ten
Commandments.[662] In connecting the moral law with the worship of
Jehovah, its inseparable foundation, and setting it up with passionate
earnestness as the immediate command of the God of Israel, Moses
imparted to his people that character of religious earnestness, and
ethical struggling, which distinguishes their history from that of every
other nation. With the decalogue were connected the regulations for
peace in the nation, the law of the family, and the avenging of blood.
One who curses father or mother must be put to death. One who strikes
father or mother must be put to death. One who strikes a man so that he
dies must be put to death. One who has slain a man without intention, by
misadventure, must flee to the altar. But if anyone sins against another
so as to slay him by craft, thou shalt take him from the altar that he
may die. If men strive with one another, and one is injured, thou shalt
give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot, burn
for burn, bruise for bruise. If any man strike his man-servant or his
maid-servant with his staff, and they die under his hand, vengeance must
be taken. If thou buyest a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and
in the seventh he shall go free. The long service in Egypt was still
held in lively remembrance.[663]
Just as the ordinances of Moses for religious worship again brought into
prominence the ancient customs of the Hebrews, purified and developed
them, so his regulations for peace, for revenge, and expiation, for
injury to the person, and theft, were connected with ancient customs of
the children of Jacob, which could hardly have been entirely forgotten
in Egypt. As Moses attached his law to the old customs, permeating them
with the depth of his own ethical point of view, a certain stock of
sayings must have been formed, which were preserved and further
developed by the decisions of the heads of the tribes, the leaders of
families, and the elders and the priests. The code in Exodus is taken
from an old document, though apparently first inserted by the
revision.[664]
The Israelites had risen from a tribe into a nation, which stood in need
of organisation when it was no longer under Egyptian dominion. This
arrangement must be founded upon the connection of families and races,
on respect for the tie of blood, and reverence for age. No other
political division was known but community of family and descent.
Affinities and races were in existence which carried back their origin
to one patriarch, they followed the head of the oldest family, from whom
the rest were derived, or thought that they were derived, and usually
obeyed his decision. Some of these races carried their pedigree back to
Jacob and his sons. After the pattern of these connections, and by
adopting and adding to them, the whole nation was brought into ties of
relationship. Strangers and families without a name must have here been
in part allotted to the affinities already in existence, and partly
formed into new corporations, and new affinities, so that in the total
there were some seventy groups of families. Those derived from the old
stocks, who carried their origin back to the same son of Jacob, formed
together a large community, or tribe, and were accustomed to obey the
nearest descendant of the patriarch, the son of his oldest son, from
first-born to first-born, and thus the head of the oldest family in the
whole community, as their tribal prince and leader by birth. In the same
manner, also, the new groups of families became amalgamated into tribes,
and older families were put at their head as chiefs of the tribe, in
such a manner that from three to ten groups of families formed a
tribe.[665] Thus twelve tribes were formed. Even the nations most
closely allied to the Hebrews, the Nahorites, and Ishmaelites, were
divided into twelve tribes; the Edomites were apparently divided into
sixteen. The tribes already in existence were derived from definite
progenitors, the sons of Jacob; and also for the new tribes one of the
sons of Jacob, the number of whom has thus been fixed, was allotted as a
patriarch. Reuben, Simeon, and Judah, were Jacob's eldest sons, borne by
Leah his first wife in lawful marriage. From these three the oldest
groups were derived. With the tribes of Issachar and Zebulon families
were connected, whose antiquity did not go so far back, and thus
Issachar and Zebulon were held to be younger sons of Jacob by the same
wife. The tribes of Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher, were not considered
equally pure; perhaps because additional families had been incorporated
in them: hence, as we saw, their progenitors are said to be the sons of
Jacob by his handmaids. The tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin,
are marked as of later origin by the fact that they are carried back to
Jacob and Rachel; and if Joseph begot his sons Ephraim and Manasseh with
the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, this leads to the conclusion
that the families incorporated into the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh
had grown up in Egypt, and had Egyptian blood in their veins. But
Ephraim was at the same time the strongest tribe, which in numbers and
bravery outstripped the rest, and the later origin is compensated by the
importance of Rachel and Joseph. The Egyptian element which Ephraim and
Manasseh introduced among the Hebrews cannot have been of any
importance, for neither the language nor the ideas of the Hebrews
incorporated elements from Egypt. Only a few external touches in the
dress of the priests can be carried back with certainty to Egyptian
influence. Of the two sons of Joseph, Manasseh is the elder, Ephraim the
younger. Hence the groups of families incorporated into the first, must
have been considered the older, or the tribe of Manasseh must at one
time have had precedence of Ephraim, which may have been the case about
the time of Gideon.
If in the place of Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob, two grandsons are
adopted into the number of the patriarchs, room is made by excluding
Levi, a son of Jacob's first marriage, from the series of the tribes.
Tradition places him among the oldest sons, between Simeon and Judah.
But the tribes deduced from this ancestor won no territory like the
rest: they were scattered among the other tribes. We may assume that the
priestly families, who from antiquity had discharged the sacred duty at
the main seats of worship, the race of Kohath (to which belonged the
sons of Aaron), with the priestly families of the other altars (the
races of Gershom and Merari), and the families of the temple-servants
connected with them, were not combined into a tribe till a late period.
The name "Levi" may mean "bound," _i.e._ bound to a shrine, and hence a
temple-servant. The separation of this tribe from the rest, and its
dedication to the sacred service, is brought forward with great emphasis
in the first text, which was composed from the point of view of the
priests. Jehovah takes the Levites in the place of the first-born of
Israel, and this same text allots to the Levites forty-eight cities of
Canaan which they never possessed, and never inhabited either
exclusively or in preponderant numbers.[666] But while in this text the
adoption of the Levites by Jehovah, and their "possession of the
sacrifice" in the place of a territory, is regarded and extolled as a
privilege of this tribe, we found above (p. 439) that an old poem spoke
of the "division of the Levites in Jacob and their scattering in Israel"
as the punishment of the sin which their progenitor had once committed.
Hence we must assume that the groups of races, to which the foremost
families of the priests belonged, once formed a connected tribe like the
rest, and the breaking up of this tribe was brought about after the
settlement in Canaan by causes unknown to us.
FOOTNOTES:
[650] Numb. xxiv. 13, c. xxxi.
[651] Numb. xxxii. 4; Noeldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 90.
[652] De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 292; Noeldeke,
"Untersuchungen," s. 86.
[653] 2 Kings xviii. 4.
[654] Numb. xx. 1-13, 22-29; Deut. xxxii. 48-52.
[655] Lepsius, "Briefe," s. 245.
[656] Isaiah xv. 8.
[657] On the mutual interpolations of the narratives, both in regard to
the rebels and the mode of their destruction, see Noeldeke,
"Untersuchungen," s. 79, 131.
[658] Lepsius, "Briefe," s. 341.
[659] Numb. xxxiii. 40 (the first text); Numb. xxi. 1-3, and xiv. 44,
45, belong to the second text; De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 291;
Deut. i. 44; Joshua xii. 14; Judges i. 17. Cf. Noeldeke,
"Untersuchungen," s. 85, on the tenacity with which unsuccessful battles
are remembered in these districts.
[660] Noeldeke explains Exod. xx. 23-26 and xxi. 1-xxiii. 19, as in
substance and in part a composition of great antiquity,
"Untersuchungen," s. 51.
[661] Noeldeke ("Untersuchungen," s. 62 ff.) proves that Levit. i.-xxvi.
2, and xxvii., with the exception of a few additions, especially cc.
xviii.-xx. belong to the first text; and De Wette-Schrader
("Einleitung," s. 286 ff.) proves the same for nearly the whole book.
Moreover, he shows at length, pp. 265, 266, that many of the ceremonial
ordinances and the faith of the land in general goes back to Moses, or
the Mosaic times.
[662] The Mosaic origin of the decalogue (Exod. xx. 1-17; Deut. v. 6-21)
is proved in De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 284. The original form
of it, it is true, is no longer in existence.
[663] So the old codex, Exod. xxi. 1-6. The priestly law on the other
hand puts off the liberation till the year of Jubilee, Levit. xxv. 39
ff.
[664] On Exod. xxi.-xxiii. 19, cf. De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s.
285, 286, and Noeldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 51, 63 ff.
[665] Gen. xlvi. 8-27 Numb. ii 3-31; 1 Chron. ii 10.
[666] Noeldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 103, 109, 128.