By W. F. COLLIER, LL. D.
Between the time of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan and the
birth of our Savior, a period of 1,451 years elapsed. It is not our
object to follow out the history of this wonderful nation, yet it would
seem necessary to state briefly their progress.
For several centuries they remained much in the same state as Joshua,
their great captain, left them; contending with the surrounding tribes
whenever their encroachments were disputed, at other times living
friendly with them; not only intermarrying, but allowing themselves
to be seduced into idolatry; for which sin the Lord permitted the
neighboring nations, in more than one instance, to conquer them,
to break up their government, and carry the principal inhabitants
into captivity. In each case, however, after long and weary years
of captivity, their country was restored to them, and the spoilers
themselves were made instruments in the hands of God to reconstruct the
nation.
_Social and Religious Condition._—During the forty years of wandering
in the wilderness, very little opportunity was afforded for the
exercise of the arts of life. It is difficult to conjecture the
employment of that vast multitude during all those years.
The construction of the tabernacle and its furniture called into use
the skill and workmanship of the best artisans; but, aside from that,
there was nothing to tax their talent. During the forty years they lost
the arts they had learned in Egypt.
For many years after they entered the Holy Land their mode of living
was rude and simple, depending mainly upon the produce of their flocks
and herds for sustenance. We have reason to infer that they also drew
upon the same source for many articles of clothing.
The forty years of pilgrimage in the wilderness swept into the grave
nearly all the vast multitude that left Egypt with Moses. Those
who entered the Holy Land had not witnessed the idolatry of Egypt.
Moreover, their very existence had depended upon the fall of the manna.
Witnessing this daily miracle, a spirit of dependence and submission
must have engrafted itself upon this new generation.
The dreary chastisement of the forty years, the plagues that once
and again made such havoc, the sad fact that the bones of their
fathers were left to whiten in the wilderness, must have produced a
terrible impression. The people who came out from Egypt were haughty,
unbelieving, rebellious. Their descendants, humbled by chastisement,
made dependent by their helplessness, became gentle, submissive, and
obedient. We must hence infer that they remained for many years simple
in habit and devotional in spirit.
For three hundred and thirty-two years after the death of Joshua, the
successor of Moses, the Israelites were governed by judges. During
this period the Jews were a nation of farmers, and each farmer was
the proprietor of his own farm. The size of the farm allotted to each
family may at first have averaged from twenty to fifty acres; and as
there were very few servants or laborers, except such hewers of wood
and drawers of water as the Gibeonites, each family had to cultivate
its own estate. The houses were seldom built apart from each other,
like the farm houses of our own country—that would have been too
insecure; they were placed together in villages, towns, and cities; and
when the place was very much exposed, and of great importance, it was
surrounded by a wall.
The lands were adapted chiefly for three kinds of produce—grain, fruit,
and pasture. Wheat, millet, barley, and beans were the principal kinds
of grain; flax and cotton were also cultivated, and small garden herbs,
such as anise, cummin, mint, and rue. (Mat. xxiii: 23.)
The orchards were exceedingly productive. The olive, fig, pomegranate,
vine, almond, and apple were all common; and a great part of the time
of the Hebrews, in days of peace, must have been spent in cultivating
these fruit trees.
As beasts of burden they had the ox, the camel, and the ass; while
sheep and goats constituted the staple of their flocks.
Their grain harvest began about the beginning of our April, and lasted
for about two months. Summer followed, in June and July, and was the
season for gathering the garden fruits. The next two months were still
warmer, so that the sheep shearing would have to be overtaken before
they set in. During all this time little or no rain falls in Palestine.
The country becomes excessively parched, the brooks and springs dry up,
and almost the only supply of water is from the pools and reservoirs
that have been filled during the winter.
October and November are the seed time. “The former rain” falls now. It
often falls with violence, fills the dry torrent-beds, and illustrates
our Savior’s figure of the rains descending, and the floods coming and
beating upon the houses. (Matt. vii: 25, 27.) December and January are
the winter months, when frost and snow are not uncommon; February and
March are also cold. “The latter rains” fall at this season. About the
end of it, “the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and
the voice of the turtle is heard in the land; the fig tree putteth
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes have a good
smell.” (Song of Sol., ii: 11, 13.)
Among the wild trees and vegetable products of the country were the
cedar, stable and lofty, an emblem of usefulness and beauty (Ps. xcii:
12); the oak, both the smooth and the prickly sort, which grow in great
luxuriance in Bashan; the terebinth, or turpentine tree (translated
_oak_ in our Bibles), a large evergreen, with spreading branches,
often growing singly, and so striking as to mark a district—like the
terebinth of Shechem, of Mamre (or Hebron), and of Ophrah; the fir,
the cypress, the pine, the myrtle, and the mulberry. The oleander and
the prickly pear flourished in most situations. The rose and the lily
were the common flowers. Altogether, the number of vegetable products
was large and varied; and, in such a country, Solomon’s memory and
acquirements could not have been contemptible, when “he spake of trees,
from the cedar that is in Lebanon unto the hyssop that springeth out of
the wall.”
The ordinary employments of the Hebrew farmer were thus ample and
varied, but not very toilsome; and often they were pleasantly
interrupted. Thrice a year the males went up to Shiloh, to the three
great festivals—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Each seventh
day was a holy Sabbath to the Lord, devoted to rest and worship. At
each new moon there was also a holy day. Each seventh year was a year
of rest, at least from the ordinary occupations of the field and the
garden: it was probably turned to account in repairing houses, clothes,
and implements, and particularly in the religious instruction of the
people. The education of the children was chiefly in the hands of
their parents, assisted by the Levites, who were scattered over the
country, and paid from the tithes of the whole produce. On the whole,
the Hebrews, in times of peace, led, during this period, a quiet,
unambitious, country life.
Occasionally, as in the song of Deborah, we meet with proofs that
music, and song, and literary culture were not neglected; and the
“divers colors of needlework on both sides,” for which the mother of
Sisera waited so anxiously at her window, showed that the Hebrew ladies
had acquired no mean skill in the use of their needles. But, on the
whole, neither learning, nor the mechanical arts, nor manufactures, nor
commerce, nor the fine arts, were very vigorously cultivated, or made
much progress during this period. Each man was content to sit under his
vine and under his fig tree; and the children of a family were usually
quite pleased to divide the possessions, and follow the occupations of
their fathers.
The government of the country was carried on chiefly by local
officers. It is not easy to ascertain the precise number and nature
of the departments of the government, or of the officers by whom they
were carried on. But each of the twelve tribes seems to have had a
government of its own. Each city had its elders, and each tribe its
rulers and princes. In ordinary cases, justice seems to have been
administered, and local disputes settled by the tribal authorities.
There seem also to have been certain central tribunals. In particular,
there was “the whole congregation of Israel”—a sort of house of
commons, or states-general, composed of delegates from the whole
nation, by whom matters of vital importance to the whole country were
considered.
In ordinary times, the high priest seems to have exercised considerable
political influence over the nation; and in pressing dangers, the
judges were invested with extraordinary powers. The whole of the twelve
tribes were welded together, and had great unity of feeling and action
imparted to them, through the yearly gatherings at the great religious
festivals. When idolatry prevailed in any district of the country,
these gatherings would be neglected, and the unity of the nation
consequently impaired.
No important addition was made during this period to the religious
knowledge of the people. There was no new revelation of the Messiah,
except in so far as the several deliverers who were raised up
foreshadowed the Great Deliverer. The ceremonial law of Moses
was probably in full operation during the periods of religious
faithfulness. The great lesson regarding sin—its hatefulness in God’s
eyes, and the certainty of its punishment—was continually renewed by
the events of providence.
Those who really felt the evil of sin would see in the sacrifices that
were constantly offered up a proof that God can not accept the sinner
unless his sin be atoned for through the shedding of blood. But even
pious men had not very clear ideas of the way of acceptance with God.
A humble sense of their own unworthiness, the spirit of trust in God’s
undeserved mercy for pardon, and a steady, prayerful endeavor to do all
that was right in God’s sight, were the great elements of true piety in
those days. There was great occasion for the exercise of high trust in
God, both in believing that prosperity would always follow the doing
of his will, and in daring great achievements, like those of Barak and
Gideon, under the firm conviction that he would crown them with success.
But in a religious point of view this period was a very checkered one;
sometimes one state of things prevailed, sometimes another. The people
showed a constant inclination to forsake the pure worship of the true
God, and fall into the idolatry of their neighbors. The oppressions
which those very neighbors inflicted on them, and the wars which
ensued, generally produced an antipathy to their religious and other
customs, which lasted for some years; but the old fondness for idolatry
returned again and again.
It clearly appears that a pure, spiritual worship is distasteful to the
natural heart. Men unconverted do not relish coming into heart-to-heart
contact with the unseen God; they are much more partial to a worship
conducted through images and symbols: for this reason the Israelites
were always falling into idolatry; idolatry led to immorality; and both
drew down on them the judgments of their offended God.
[_End of Required Reading for January._]