The Development of the Church in Old Testament Times
By James Oscar Boyd, Ph.D., D.D.
LESSON I
Before Abraham
Genesis, Chapters 1 to 11
That part of the globe which comes within the view of the Old
Testament is mostly the region, about fifteen hundred miles square,
lying in the southwestern part of Asia, the southeastern part of
Europe, and the northeastern part of Africa. This is where the three
continents of the Eastern Hemisphere come together. Roughly speaking
it includes Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and
Egypt, with a fringe of other lands and islands stretching beyond
them.
The heart of all this territory is that little strip of land, lying
between the desert on the east and the Mediterranean Sea on the
west, known as Syria and Palestine. It is some four hundred miles
in length and varies from fifty to one hundred miles in width. It
has been well called "the bridge of the world," for like a bridge it
joins the largest continent, Asia, to the next largest, Africa. And
as Palestine binds the lands together, so the famous Suez Canal at
its southern end now binds the seas together. To-day, therefore, as
in all the past, this spot is the crossroads of the nations.
Palestine has long been called the "Holy Land," because it is the
scene of most of the Bible story. Yet it would be a mistake to
suppose that that Bible story is limited to Palestine. The book
of Genesis does not introduce the reader to Canaan (as it calls
Palestine) until he has reached its twelfth chapter. There is a
sense in which the history of God's people begins with Abraham, and
it was Abraham who went at God's bidding into the land of Canaan.
The story of Abraham will be taken up in the second lesson; but the
Bible puts before the life of Abraham all the familiar story that
lies in the first eleven chapters of Genesis and that forms the
background for the figures of Abraham and his descendants.
The location of this background is the basin of the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers. These two streams are mentioned in Gen. 2:14 (the
Tigris under the form "Hiddekel") as the third and fourth "heads"
of the "river that went out of Eden to water the garden" in which
our first parents dwelt. The region is at the southern end of what
is now called Mesopotamia. At the northern end of this river basin
towers the superb mountain known as Mount Ararat. But the "mountains
of Ararat," mentioned in Gen. 8:4 as the place where Noah's ark
rested when the waters of the Flood had subsided, are no particular
peak, but are the highlands of Kurdistan, which in ancient times
were called Urartu (Ararat). Between Kurdistan on the north and the
Persian Gulf on the south, the highlands of Persia on the east and
the great Syrian Desert on the west, occurred the earliest drama of
human history.
That drama was a tragedy. It became a tragedy because of man's sin.
The wonderful poem of creation in Gen., ch. 1, has for the refrain
of its six stanzas, "God saw that it was good." Best of all was man,
the last and highest of God's works--man, made in "his own image,"
after his likeness. On the sixth "day," when God made man, God said
of his work, "Behold, it was very good." More than that: through
the kindness of God man is put in a "garden," and is ordered to
"dress it and to keep it." Ch. 2:15. Adam sees his superiority to
the rest of the animal kingdom, over which he is given "dominion."
He is thus prepared to appreciate the woman as a helpmeet for him,
so that the unit of society may ever mean for him one man and one
woman with their children. Adam is also warned against sin as having
disobedience for its root and death as its result.
All this prepares us to understand the temptation, the miserable
fall of the woman and the man, their terror, shame, and punishment.
Ch. 3. And we are not surprised to see the unfolding of sin in the
life of their descendants, beginning with Cain's murder of Abel, and
growing until God sweeps all away in a universal deluge. Chs. 4, 6.
God's tender love for his foolish, rebellious creatures "will not
let them go." At the gates of the garden from which their sin has
forever banished them, God already declares his purpose to "bruise"
the head of that serpent, Rom. 16:20, who had brought "sin into
the world and death by sin," Gen. 3:15. Through the "seed of the
woman"--a "Son of man" of some future day--sinful man can escape
the death he has brought upon himself. And from Seth, the child
"appointed instead of" murdered Abel, a line of men descends, who
believe this promise of God. Ch. 5. In Enoch we find them "walking
with God," v. 24, in a fellowship that seemed lost when paradise
was lost. In Lamech we find them hoping with each new generation
that God's curse will be at length removed. V. 29. And in Noah we
find them obedient to a positive command of God, ch. 6:22, as Adam
had been disobedient.
In the Flood, Noah and his family of eight were the only persons to
survive. When they had come from the ark after the Flood, God gave
them the promise that he would not again wipe out "all flesh." Ch.
9:11. But after it appeared that God's judgments had not made them
fear him, God was just as angry with Noah's descendants as he had
been with the men before the Flood. Pride led them to build a tower
to be a rallying point for their worship of self. But God showed
them that men cannot long work together with a sinful purpose as
their common object; he broke up their unity in sin by confusing
their speech, ch. 11, and scattering them over the earth, ch. 10.
This second disappointment found its brighter side in the line of
men descended from Noah through Shem, ch. 11:10, who also cherished
God's promises. And the last stroke of the writer's pen in these
earliest chapters of the Bible introduces the reader to the family
of Terah in that line of Shem, and thus prepares the way for a
closer acquaintance with Terah's son, Abraham, "the friend of God."
QUESTIONS ON LESSON I
1. About how large is the world of the
Old Testament, and where does it lie?
2. What special importance has Palestine because of its position?
3. How much of the story in Genesis is told before we are
carried to Palestine?
4. Locate on a map the scene of those earliest events in human
history.
5. Show how the first two chapters of Genesis prepare for the
tragedy of sin and death that follows.
6. How does the brighter side of hope and faith appear from Adam
to Noah?
7. What effect did the Flood have on men's sin and their faith
in God?
8. Trace the descent of the man God chose to become "the father
of the faithful."
LESSON II
The Patriarchs
Genesis, Chapters 12 to 50
God's purpose to save and bless all mankind was to be carried out
in a wonderful way. He selected and "called" one man to become the
head and ancestor of a single nation. And in this man and the nation
descended from him, God purposed to bless the whole world.
Abraham was that man, and Israel was that nation. God made known
his purpose in what the Bible calls the Promise, Gal. 3:17, the
Blessing, v. 14, or the Covenant, v. 17. Its terms are given many
times over in the book of Genesis, but the essence of it lies
already in the first word of God to Abraham, Gen. 12:3, "In thee
shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
To believe this promise was a work of faith. It was against all
appearances and all probability. Yet this was just where the
religious value of that promise lay for Abraham and for his children
after him--in faith. They had to believe something on the basis
solely of their confidence in the One who had promised it. Or
rather, they had to believe in that Person, the personal Jehovah,
their God. They must absolutely trust him. To do so, they must "know
him." And that they might know him, he must reveal himself to them.
That is why we read all through Genesis of God's "appearing" or
"speaking" to this or the other patriarch. However he accomplished
it, God was always trying thus to make them better acquainted with
himself; for such knowledge was to be the basis of their faith. Upon
faith in him depended their faith in his word, and upon faith in
his word depended their power to keep alive in the world that true
religion which was destined for all men and which we to-day share.
Abraham's God is our God.
Not Abraham's great wealth in servants, Gen. 14:14, and in flocks
and herds, ch. 13:2, 6, but the promise of God to bless, constituted
the true "birthright" in Abraham's family. Ishmael, the child of
doubt, missed it; and Isaac, the child of faith, obtained it. Gal.
4:23. Esau "despised" it, because he was "a profane [irreligious]
person," Heb. 12:16, and Jacob schemed to obtain it by purchase,
Gen. 25:31, and by fraud, ch. 27:19. Jacob bequeathed it to his
sons, ch. 49, and Moses delivered it in memorable poetic form to
the nation to retain and rehearse forever. Deut., ch. 32.
When Abraham, the son of Terah, entered Canaan with Sarah his
wife and Lot his nephew and their great company of servants and
followers, he was obeying the command of his God. He no sooner
enters it than God gives him a promise that binds up this land with
him and his descendants. Gen. 13:14-17. Yet we must not suppose
that Abraham settled down in this Promised Land in the way that
the Pilgrim Fathers settled in the Old Colony. Although Canaan is
promised to the "seed" of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a possession,
they did not themselves obtain a foothold in it. Apart from the
field of the cave Machpelah, at Hebron in the south, Gen., ch.
23, and a "shoulder" (_shechem_) or fragment of land near Shechem
("Jacob's Well"), in the center of Canaan, the patriarchs did
not acquire a foot of the soil of what was to become "the Holy
Land." Abraham wandered about, even going down to Egypt and back.
Isaac was sometimes at Hebron and sometimes at Beer-sheba on the
extreme southern verge of the land. Jacob spent much of his manhood
in Mesopotamia, and of his old age in Egypt. For after divine
Providence in a remarkable manner had transplanted one of Jacob's
sons, Joseph, into new soil, Gen., ch. 37, his father and his
brothers were drawn after him, with the way for their long Egyptian
residence providentially prepared for them, Gen. 50:20.
Side by side with the growth of a nation out of an individual we
find God's choice of the direction which that growth should take.
Not all, even of Abraham's family, were to become part of the
future people of God. So Lot, Abraham's nephew, separates from
him, and thereafter he and his descendants, the Ammonites and the
Moabites, go their own way. As between Abraham's sons, Ishmael is
cast out, and Isaac, Sarah's son, is selected. And between Isaac's
two sons, Esau and Jacob, the choice falls on Jacob. All twelve of
Jacob's sons are included in the purpose of God, and for this reason
the nation is called after Jacob, though usually under his name
"Israel," which God gave him after his experience of wrestling with
"the angel of the Lord" at the river Jabbok. Gen. 32:22. Those sons
of his are to become the heads of the future nation of the "twelve
tribes", Acts 26:7.
Even while Lot, Ishmael, and Esau are thus being cut off, the
greatest care is taken to keep the descent of the future nation pure
to the blood of Terah's house. Those three men all married alien
wives: Lot probably a woman of Sodom, Ishmael an Egyptian, and
Esau two Hittite women. The mother of Isaac was Sarah, the mother
of Jacob was Rebekah, and the mothers of eight of the twelve sons
of Jacob were Leah and Rachel; and all these women belonged to that
same house of Terah to which their husbands belonged. Indeed, much
of Genesis is taken up with the explanation of how Isaac and Jacob
were kept from intermarrying with the peoples among whom they lived.
The last quarter of the book, which is occupied with the story of
Joseph and his brethren, is designed to link these "fathers" and
their God with the God and people of Moses. The same Jehovah who had
once shown his power over Pharaoh for the protection of Abraham and
Sarah, and who was later to show his power over another Pharaoh "who
knew not Joseph," showed his power also over the Pharaoh of Joseph's
day, in exalting Joseph from the dungeon to the post of highest
honor and authority in Egypt, and in delivering Jacob and his whole
family from death through Joseph's interposition. What their long
residence in Egypt meant for God's people will be seen in another
lesson.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON II
1. In what promise does God reveal to Abraham his plan to bless
the world?
2. How was Abraham brought to believe in God's promise? What
difference did it make whether he and his descendants believed
it or not?
3. Did the patriarchs see that part of the promise fulfilled
which gave them possession of "the Holy Land"? Read carefully
Gen. 15:13-16 and Heb. 11:9, 10, 14-16.
4. Make a "family tree" in the usual way, showing those
descendants of Terah who play any large part in the book of
Genesis. Underscore in it the names of those men who were in
the direct line of "the Promise."
5. How were Isaac and Jacob kept from marrying outside their own
family?
6. Explain Joseph's words, "Ye meant evil against me; but God
meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to
save much people alive." Gen. 50:20.
LESSON III
Egyptian Bondage and Deliverance
Exodus, Chapter 1
God says through his prophet Hosea, Hos. 11:1, "When Israel was a
child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." See also
Matt. 2:15. There was a loving, divine purpose in the Egyptian
residence of God's people. What was it? What did this period mean in
the career of Israel?
Most obviously, it meant growth. From the "seventy souls," Ex.
1:5, that went down into Egypt with Jacob, there sprang up there a
populous folk, large enough to take its place alongside the other
nations of the world of that day. Observe the nature of the land
where this growth took place. Egypt was a settled country, where the
twelve developing tribes could be united geographically and socially
in a way impossible in a country like Palestine. However oppressed
they were, they nevertheless were secluded from the dangers of raids
from without and of civil strife within--just such dangers as later
almost wrecked the substantial edifice slowly erected by this period
of growth in Egypt.
Egypt meant also for Israel a time of waiting. All this growth was
not accomplished in a short time. It lasted four hundred and thirty
years. Ex. 12:40, 41. Through this long period, which seems like
a dark tunnel between the brightness of the patriarchs' times and
that of Moses' day, there was nothing for God's people to do but to
wait. They were the heirs of God's promise, but they must wait for
the fulfillment of that promise in God's own time, wait for a leader
raised up by God, wait for the hour of national destiny to strike.
As Hosea, ch. 11:1 expresses it, this "child" must wait for his
Father's "call." The Egyptian period left an indelible impression on
the mind of Israel. It formed the gray background on which God could
lay the colors of his great deliverance. It is because God knew and
planned this that he so often introduces himself to his people, when
he speaks to them, as "Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
In the third place, this Egyptian period meant for Israel a time
of chastisement. The oppression to which the descendants of Jacob
were exposed, when "there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not
Joseph," Ex. 1:8, was so severe, prolonged, and hopeless, v. 14,
that it has become proverbial and typical. Since every male child
was to be put to death, v. 22, it is clear that the purpose of the
Egyptians was nothing less than complete extermination. "It is good
for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth": if that be true, then
the children of Israel derived good from the school of discipline
in which they grew up. True, as we read their later story, we feel
that no people could be more fickle. Yet there is no other nation
with which to compare Israel. And it is very probable that no other
nation would have been serious-minded enough even to receive and
grasp the divine revelation and leading of Moses' and Joshua's time.
God, who had "seen the affliction of his people," who had "heard
their cry" and sent Moses to them to organize their deliverance,
wrote forever on this nation's soul the message of salvation in a
historical record. At the start of their national life there stood
the story, which they could never deny or forget, and which told
them of God's power and grace.
Exodus, Chapters 5 to 15
All this lay in Israel's experience in Egypt. The next lesson
will tell of the character and work of the man whom God chose to
be leader. The means by which Moses succeeded in the seemingly
impossible task of marching a great horde of slaves out from their
masters' country, was the impression of God's power on the minds
of Pharaoh and his people. It was a continued, combined, and
cumulative impression. Of course it could not be made without the
use of supernatural means. We must not, therefore, be surprised to
find the story in Exodus bristling with miracles. To be sure, the
"plagues" can be shown to be largely natural to that land where they
occurred. And the supreme event of the deliverance, the passage of
Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground, was due, according to the
narrative itself, to a persistent, wind, Ex. 14:21, such as often
lays bare the shallows of a bay, only to release the waters again
when its force is spent.
Nevertheless, it is not possible to remove the "hand of God" from
the account by thus pointing out some of the means God used to
accomplish his special purposes. It was at the time, in the way, and
in the order, in which Moses announced to Pharaoh the arrival of the
plagues, that they actually appeared. This was what had its ultimate
effect on the king's stubborn will. And when Israel was told to "go
forward," with the waters right before them, and when the Egyptians
were saying, "They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath
shut them in," Ex. 14:3--it was just at that juncture that the east
wind did its work at God's command; when Israel was over safely,
it went down. Such things do not "happen." It made a profound
impression on Israel, on Egypt, and on all the nations of that day;
all united in accepting it as the work of Israel's God. Ex. 15:11,
14-16; Josh. 2:10.
The important point for the nation was to know, when Moses and Aaron
came to them in the name of God, that it was their fathers' God who
had sent them. On account of this need, which both the people and
their leaders felt, God proclaimed his divine name, Jehovah (more
precisely, _Yahweh_, probably meaning "He is," Ex. 3:14, 15), to
Moses, and bade him pronounce the same to Israel, to assure them
that he was "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," and thus
what Moses came now to do for them was just what had been promised
to those fathers long before. The passover night was the fulfillment
of God's good word to Abraham. Ex. 13:10, 11. How that word went on
and on toward more and more complete fulfillment will be the subject
of the succeeding lessons.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON III
1. What advantages had Egypt over Palestine as the place for
Israel to grow from a family into a nation?
2. What value was there for Israel in a negative time of waiting
at the beginning of its history?
3. Compare the effect on Israel with the effect on a man, of
passing through a time of difficulty while developing.
4. Name the ten "plagues of Egypt" in their order. How far can
they be called "natural"?
5. If the east wind drove back the Red Sea, what did God have to
do with Israel's escape from the Egyptian army?
6. Why should we not be surprised to find many miracles grouped
at this stage of Bible history?
7. How did God identify himself in the minds of the people with
the God of their fathers? What was his personal name?
LESSON IV
Moses as Leader and Lawgiver
Exodus, Chapters 2 to 4
One of the things Israel had to wait for through those centuries in
Egypt was a leader. When the time came God raised up such a leader
for his people in Moses.
The story of how Moses' life was preserved in infancy, and of how
he came to be brought up at the court of Pharaoh with all its
advantages for culture, is one of the most fascinating tales of
childhood. Ex. 2:1-10. But not many who know this familiar tale
could go on with the biography of the man of forty who fled from
Pharaoh's vengeance. Moses found by personal contact with his
"brethren," the children of Israel, that they were not yet ready for
common action, and would not easily acknowledge his right to lead
them. After killing an Egyptian slave driver there was nothing for
Moses to do but to flee. Vs. 11-15.
He spent the second forty years of his life, Acts 7:23, 30; Ex. 7:7,
in the deserts about the eastern arm of the Red Sea--the region
known to the Hebrews as Midian. There he married the daughter of the
Midianite priest Reuel. (Jethro was probably Reuel's title, meaning
"his excellency.") While herding his sheep in the mountains called
Horeb (Sinai), Moses received at the burning bush that personal
revelation of the God of his fathers, which lay at the base of all
his future labors for God and his people. Ex. 3:1 to 4:17. It was
a commission to lead Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the
land promised to their fathers.
Though very humble as to his fitness for such leadership, Moses
was assured of Jehovah's presence and help. He was equipped with
extraordinary powers for convincing the proud Pharaoh that his
demands were God's demands; and he was given the aid of his brother
Aaron, who had a readiness of speech which Moses at this time seems
to have lacked.
Exodus, Chapters 16 to 24
How the two brothers achieved the seemingly impossible task of
winning out of Egypt, and of uniting a spiritless and unorganized
mass of slaves upon a desperate enterprise, is the narrative that
fills the early chapters of Exodus. But with Israel safe across
the Red Sea, Moses' leadership had only begun. He instituted an
organization of the people for relieving himself of his heavy duties
as judge. He determined the line of march, and sustained the spirits
of the fighting men in their struggle against the tribes of the
desert who challenged Israel's passage.
But, above all, Moses became the "mediator" of the "covenant,"
Heb. 9:19-21, between the Hebrews and Jehovah their God at Mount
Sinai. On the basis of the Ten Commandments, Ex. 20:2-17; Deut.
5:6-21, that guide to God's nature and will which formed the Hebrew
constitution, the people agreed to worship and obey Jehovah alone,
and Jehovah promised to be their God, fulfilling to them his
promises made to their fathers. By solemn sacrifices, according to
the custom of the time, when the symbolism of altar and priesthood
was well understood, this covenant was sealed.
Exodus, Chapter 25 to Numbers, Chapter 36
After long seclusion on the mount alone with God, Moses ordered the
erection of a house of worship. It had to be portable, so as to
accompany them in their wanderings and express visibly, wherever
set up, the religious unity of the twelve tribes. Aaron and his
sons were consecrated to be the official priesthood of this new
shrine and were clothed and instructed accordingly. Minute details
regulated all sacrifices, and similar minute instructions enabled
the priests to decide questions of ceremonial cleanness and
uncleanness in matters of food and health.
All these laws and regulations, mainly recorded in Leviticus,
were given through Moses, either alone or in association with his
brother. It is not surprising to learn that there were those who
challenged this exclusive leadership in every department of the
national life. We read of a willful disregard of divine orders even
in the family of Aaron, with immediate fatal results. Lev. 10:1-7.
Like punishment overtook those members of the tribe of Levi who
showed jealousy of the house of Aaron, and those elements in other
tribes that claimed rights equal or superior to those of Moses.
Num., chs. 16, 17. It would be strange, indeed, if God, who had
vindicated his servant Moses against Pharaoh, should let his own
authority as represented by Moses be challenged within the camp of
Israel. He punished to save.
Just as God took up the Sabbath and circumcision, old customs of
the preceding era, into the law of Israel, so also he spoke to this
people through an elaborate system of feasts and pilgrimages, which
bound up their whole year with the worship of God. Indeed, the
principle of the seventh part of time as sacred was extended to the
seventh year, and even to the fiftieth year (the year following the
seventh seven), for beneficent social and economic uses. Lev., ch.
25.
When at length the nation, thus organized and equipped, set forth
from Sinai, Num. 10:11, they required a leadership of a different
kind--military leadership and practical statesmanship. They
found both in Moses. He it was who led them through all the long
wanderings in the peninsula of Sinai, bearing their murmurings and
meeting their recurrent difficulties with a patience that seems
almost divine, save for that one lapse which was to cost him and
Aaron their entrance into the Promised Land. Num. 20:10-12.
At the border of the land, from the top of Pisgah in the long
mountain wall of Moab, Moses at last looked down into that deep
gorge of the Jordan Valley at his feet, which separated him from
the hills of Canaan. Beyond this river and the Dead Sea, into which
it empties, lay the land long ago promised to the seed of Abraham.
Moses had been permitted to lead the people to its very gateway; but
it remained for another, his younger helper, Joshua, to lead them
through the gate into the house of rest.
The Book of Deuteronomy
But before he surrendered his power to another and his life to his
Maker, the aged Moses rehearsed in the ears of Israel the great
principles of God's law. He pleaded earnestly with them to accept
it from the heart, to adapt it to the changed conditions of their
new settled life with its new temptations, and to hand it down as
their most precious heritage to their children after them. This is
the purpose and substance of the book of Deuteronomy, which gets its
name from the fact that it is a "second lawgiving." It is the Law of
Sinai repeated, but in oratorical form, charged with the feeling and
spirit of that "man of God," whose name is forever linked with the
Law and with the God who gave it to mankind.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON IV
1. How did Moses' forty years in Egypt and his forty years in
Midian help to prepare him for leadership?
2. What was the constitution of the new Hebrew State established
at Sinai? How was it ratified?
3. How was the tabernacle suited to the religious needs of
Israel during Moses' lifetime?
4. Show how the Law of Moses takes up the old principle of the
Sabbath and applies it to the life of Israel.
5. Where did Moses' leadership end, and what was his last
service to the nation?
LESSON V
The Conquest and Settlement of Canaan
The Book of Joshua
On the death of Aaron his son, Eleazar, succeeded him as high
priest. But when Moses died, it was not a son who succeeded him in
the political and moral leadership of Israel, for that position was
not hereditary. Joshua, a man of Ephraim, was divinely designated
for this work. He was fitted for the difficult undertaking by
military experience, Ex. 17:9-14, by personal acquaintance with
Canaan, Num. 13:8, 16; 14:6, 30, 38, and by long and intimate
association with Moses, Ex. 33:11; Num. 11:28; Deut. 34:9; Josh.
1:1. The book of Joshua, which records his career, divides naturally
into two parts, first, the conquest, chs. 1 to 12, and second,
the settlement, chs. 13 to 22. Two further chapters, chs. 23, 24,
contain Joshua's valedictory address.
Before Moses' death two and a half tribes had already received their
assignment of territory on the east of the Jordan, out of lands
conquered from the Amorite kings, Sihon and Og. But the fighting men
of these tribes agreed to accompany the other tribes and share their
struggle till all had obtained an inheritance. So when the great
host passed over the Jordan, not far from where it empties into the
Dead Sea, the men of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh crossed with the
rest. Jehovah, who at the Red Sea a generation earlier had struck
terror into the hearts of all nations by his wonderful interposition
to save Israel and destroy its enemies, repeated here his saving
help, by stemming the swift current of the Jordan River, till all
had passed over dry shod to the western side.
Once over, they found themselves face to face with Jericho, a
city which commanded the passes into the mountain country beyond.
Spies previously despatched to learn the weakness of Jericho had
reported the panic of its inhabitants and so prepared the Hebrews
to believe God's word, when through Joshua he announced a bloodless
victory here at the beginning of their conquest. Without a blow
struck Jericho fell, and all its inhabitants were "devoted," at
Jehovah's strict command. Even their wealth was to be "devoted,"
that is, the cattle slain and the goods added to the treasury of
the sanctuary. Only Rahab, who had saved the spies, and her family
were excepted. One man, Achan, disobeyed the ban on private spoils.
His covetousness and deception, revealed by Israel's defeat in
the expedition against Ai which followed the fall of Jericho, and
detected by the use of the sacred lot, was punished by the execution
of all who were privy to the crime.
Better success attended the second attempt to take Ai. With these
two cities reduced, Jericho at the bottom and Ai at the top of the
valley leading up from the Jordan floor to the central highland,
Joshua was in a position to attack anywhere without fear of being
outflanked. Middle, south, and north was the order commended by
military considerations. Accordingly those cities which, because
in the middle of the land, felt themselves the most immediately
threatened, took the first steps to avert the menace. A group of
five towns lying just north of Jerusalem, with Gibeon at their head,
succeeded by a ruse in getting a treaty of peace from Joshua. The
Gibeonites deceived Joshua by representing themselves as having
come from a great distance to seek an alliance. Joshua's pride was
flattered and he fell a victim to the trick. The consequences were
serious, for these Canaanites, though reduced to vassalage, remained
as aliens in the heart of the land, and cut off the southern from
the northern tribes of Israel.
A confederacy of the chief cities in the region south of Gibeon,
headed by the king of Jerusalem, determined to strike the first
blow. But their campaign against the Gibeonites, now the allies
of Israel, ended in a quick advance by Joshua and his complete
subjugation of all these cities, the humiliation and death of their
kings, and the "devotion" of the inhabitants who fell into his hands.
A similar campaign followed in the north, with the city of Hazor
at the head of the Canaanite forces. At the "waters of Merom," a
small lake a few miles north of the Sea of Galilee, a surprise
attack by Joshua deprived his enemies of their advantage in horsemen
and chariots on the level ground they had selected for battle,
and resulted in the utter rout of the Canaanites and the general
slaughter of every soul that did not escape by flight from the
"devoted" towns.
Thus from Mount Hermon on the north to the wilderness of the
wandering on the south, the whole land had been swept over and
reduced to impotence by the Hebrew invader. It was time to apportion
it now to the several tribes. This was accomplished under the
direction of Joshua and Eleazar. Judah and Joseph, the two strongest
tribes, were assigned, the one to the south and the other to the
north of the main mountain mass. Levi's inheritance was to be "the
Lord," that is, the religious tithes, and his dwelling was to be
"among his brethren," that is, in designated towns throughout
all the land. A commission of three representatives from each of
the seven other western tribes divided the rest of the conquered
territory into seven fairly equal parts. These then were assigned
to the seven tribes by lot at the tabernacle at Shiloh. As for the
eastern tribes, when they returned to their homes across the Jordan,
they built an altar at the ford, as a permanent "witness" to the
unity of all the sons of Jacob, however the deep gorge of the Jordan
might cut them off from one another.
At Shechem, where Abraham built his first altar in Canaan, Joshua
had renewed the covenant between the people and their God as soon as
he had secured control of Mount Ephraim, the middle highlands. He
had not only read the Law of Moses to all the people here, but also
inscribed it on stones for the sake of permanence and publicity. And
now, when the conquest was complete and Joshua was nearing his end,
he reassembled the people at the same spot, to remind them there of
that solemn covenant, and to leave with them his final charge of
fidelity to their God and his one central sanctuary.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON V
1. How was Joshua specially fitted to succeed Moses as leader of
Israel?
2. Which tribes received their inheritance east of the Jordan?
How did these show their sense of the unity of all Israel (_a_)
at the beginning, and (_b_) at the close of the conquest?
3. What justification can be urged for the stern measures which
Israel took with the Canaanites and their possessions?
4. What was the plan of Joshua's campaign, and what relation did
the capture of Jericho and Ai bear to it?
5. How did the men of Gibeon deceive Joshua, and why? What
lasting damage was caused by his treaty with them?
6. Locate on a map the inheritance of each of the tribes.
LESSON VI
The Period of the Judges
The Books of Judges and Ruth
In Egypt, Israel had grown from a family into a folk. In the
wilderness the folk had become a nation. In the conquest the nation
had gotten its home. But in the period of the Judges which followed
the conquest this steady advance seemed interrupted. What do we find
at this time?
We find a loose confederacy of tribes, aware of their common origin,
yet too jealous of local names and rights to combine for a common
end, too selfish to help one another until the danger of one has
become a tragedy for all.
The nature of the land the Hebrews had occupied helped this divisive
tendency. The great gash of the Jordan Valley, its bed two or three
thousand feet below the mountain country on either side, cut off
the eastern minority from the western majority. In the west a plain
separated the foothills of the central range from the seashore. This
plain not only contained enemies like the Philistines whom only a
united Israel could have conquered, but also quickly altered the
type of its Hebrew settlers. Right across the mountain belt from the
sea to the Jordan stretched an almost unbroken plain (Esdraelon),
varying from sea level to the lower level of the Jordan. This cut
off the mountaineers to the north (Galilee) from those to the south
(Ephraim). And a glance at any physical map will show how even in
the mountain country deep, lateral valleys reach up from either side
so far toward the center that communication from north to south is
only by a series of violent grades, save along that narrow ridge
in the middle where runs the highroad between Hebron, Jerusalem,
Shechem, and Jezreel.
Under these conditions only some strong positive force could prevent
the disintegration of the Hebrew nation. Such a force the religion
of Jehovah was intended to be, and would have been, if the people
had remained faithful to it. It had one high priest, descendant
of Aaron, and associated therefore with all the memories of Moses
and Sinai. It had a single sanctuary, the seat of Ark and oracle,
the center of pilgrimage three times a year. It had one law for
all Hebrews, a law far superior to the codes of all other nations,
and revealing the nature and will of a single moral and spiritual
deity. All this provided the focus for a mighty nation, with a pure
"theocracy," that is, a government by God himself. But the people
did not remain faithful. They fell away in this time of the Judges.
The Book of Judges, which tells the story of this period, records a
long list of names, each one connected with some particular enemy of
Israel, some tribe or group of tribes delivered, and some definite
term of years during which the deliverer "judged" the people. On
this list the most conspicuous names are those of Deborah and of
Gideon in the north, of Jephthah east of the Jordan (Gilead), and
of Samson in the south. Most of the other judges are little more
than names to us. Deborah stands out, not only because she was a
woman, but also for her wonderful "song" preserved in the fifth
chapter, celebrating Barak's victory over the Canaanites near Mount
Carmel. Gideon is memorable for his strategems and his persistence,
and for his near approach to a real kingship, which was offered to
him and his house after his victory, but which he declined, saying,
"Jehovah shall rule over you." Ch. 8:23. His son Abimelech was
actually termed king in and around the city of Shechem for a few
years, but perished miserably for his sins. Ch. 9:6, 56. Jephthah's
career was mainly concerned with the region east of the Jordan,
but his admirable "apology" for Israel showed his sense of Hebrew
solidarity. Samson's picturesque story, with its petty loves and
hates, its riddles and its practical jokes, ended in a sacrificial
death which in part redeems its meanness. But neither Samson nor any
of his predecessors accomplished anything permanent.
Two words of caution belong to the study of this book and of these
times. First, we must not suppose that one judge necessarily follows
another in point of time because his story follows the other's
story in the book. Judges 10:7 shows that oppressions of different
sections of the land by different enemies might be taking place
at the same time, and suggests that the figures assigned to each
judge at the close of his story cannot safely be added together to
find the total length of this period. And second, those figures
themselves (nearly always forty or eighty) are to be taken as "round
numbers," rather than as precise data such as we look for to-day to
make out a table of chronology. In the same way the four hundred and
eighty years of I Kings 6:1 is evidently intended as twelve times
forty years, to represent the whole time from the Exodus to Solomon.
For when we have subtracted from the beginning of it one forty-year
term for the wanderings, and from the end of it three forty-year
terms for Eli, I Sam. 4:18, Saul, Acts 13:21, and David, I Kings
2:11, then we have left eight forty-year terms for the Judges. Eight
times forty is three hundred and twenty. Those three hundred and
twenty years would then correspond with the three hundred years
mentioned by Jephthah in Judg. 11:26 as dividing Moses' days from
his own. Under these circumstances we are wise to wait for further
light from archæology before fixing the precise date of any one of
these interesting persons.
There are three additions or appendices to the Book of Judges. The
first of them, including chs. 17, 18, tells how the Danites came
to live in the extreme north, and the origin of the idolatrous
sanctuary at that city of Dan which was reckoned as the northern
limit of Canaan--"from Dan to Beer-sheba." The second occupies
the three remaining chapters of Judges, and records the civil war
between Benjamin and the other tribes on account of "the sin of
Gibeah," Hos. 10:9. And the third appendix is the story of Ruth the
Moabitess which now makes a separate book in the Bible. Besides its
inherent charm the story claims special notice because of the light
it throws on that Bethlehem family which was soon to furnish the
nation its great king, David.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON VI
1. What influences made for the loss of Hebrew unity as soon as
Joshua's generation was dead?
2. What forces remained to bind the tribes together? Why did not
these forces suffice?
3. How were the persons selected who ruled Israel in this
period? Were they "judges" in the same sense as our judges
to-day? What besides?
4. What three groups of tribes tended to draw together under
common leaders? Tell the exploits of one distinguished judge
belonging to each of these groups.
5. With what reserve should we use the figures in this book to
construct a chronology of the period?
6. Point out the relation of the book of Ruth to the closing
portion of the Book of Judges. What lends Ruth peculiar
historical interest?
LESSON VII
Samuel and Saul: Prophecy and Monarchy
The First Book of Samuel
Sometimes Eli and sometimes Samuel are called the last of the
Judges. But neither of these was a judge in the same exclusive sense
as Gideon or Samson. Eli was the high priest, but exercised the
office of judge for his time. Samuel was a prophet, who also "judged
Israel" in the interval between Eli's death and Saul's accession.
Both men mark the time of transition between the period of the
Judges and the monarchy. And the two names are most closely linked,
for it was under Eli's instruction, at the sanctuary in Shiloh, that
Samuel grew up.
The story of Hannah and her dedication of her little son to God as a
"Nazirite," I Sam. 1:11; compare Num. 6:1-8, to dwell all his life
at the house of God, I Sam. 1:28, has a peculiar charm for young and
old. It gives a picture of personal piety in a rude age, and thus
serves to correct our idea of the times. Beginning at a very early
age, I Sam. 3:1 to 4:1, Samuel became the chosen and recognized
mouthpiece of Israel's God.
That is the essential meaning of a prophet--one who speaks for
God. Exodus 4:16 is instructive, for it shows that as Aaron was to
be "a mouth" to Moses, while Moses was "as God" to Aaron, so the
prophet was God's mouthpiece or spokesman. Of course a prophet was
often a person who also spoke before--one, that is, who predicted
what should come to pass. And the fact that his words were actually
fulfilled became a proof of his divine commission, both in theory,
Deut. 18:22, and in practice, Isa. 44:26. But the bulk of the
prophets' messages were, like those of Samuel, addressed to their
own time. They were preachers of righteousness, warners against sin,
the nation's conscience, and the Lord's remembrancers.
It is the chief glory of Samuel that he was not only first in the
long fine of the Hebrew prophets--the most remarkable succession of
men the world has ever seen--but also the founder of the prophetic
order. By the prophetic order we mean the prophets as a group
conscious of their solidarity, the identity of their principles
and aim. Samuel gathered about his dominating personality those
persons who were sympathetic with him in spirit, and who shared with
him some of that power of testimony which "the word of Jehovah"
conferred. They seem to have lived together, I Sam. 19:20, in
communities similar to those two centuries later under Elijah and
Elisha. They used musical instruments in their devotions, which
were public as well as private. Ch. 10:5. They were the center
of patriotic zeal as well as of religious effort. In fact, the
belief in Israel's God was so evidently the bond that bound Israel
together, that for the common man patriotism and religion were in
danger of being regarded as one and the same thing.
It is not surprising, therefore, that out of Samuel's time and from
the forces which Samuel set in motion, there came two movements
which changed the course of the nation's history: an outward
movement for independence, and an inward movement for monarchy. A
revival of religion could not fail to rouse the subjected Hebrews
against their oppressors, the Philistines. The reverses they
suffered in battle against their better armed and better led enemies
put it into their minds to set up a king, "like all the nations."
Samuel, as the national leader, was God's agent in selecting,
consecrating, and establishing the first king. He chose Saul,
of the tribe of Benjamin, a man of heroic proportions though of
modest demeanor. Ch. 9:2, 21. His choice met the popular approval,
at first with general and outward acquiescence, though with much
inward reserve and individual revolt; but after his first successful
campaign with universal loyalty. Ch. 10:27; 11:12-15.
That first military effort of the new monarch was against the
Ammonites. But a greater test remained in the menace of the
Philistines, whose garrisons at strategic points in the mountains of
Israel served to keep the tribes in check. Under those circumstances
Saul was cautious, for he had but a small force, inadequately
armed, at his disposal. But the initiative, for which all Israel
waited, was taken by Saul's son, Jonathan. Unknown to his father,
Jonathan, accompanied only by his armor-bearer, but encouraged by an
indication of God's will and by the enemy's slackness, ch. 14:12,
attacked boldly a Philistine garrison that relied too much on the
natural strength of its position. He began in this way a panic in
the enemy's ranks, and soon drew after him in pursuit of them not
only Saul's small army but multitudes of Hebrews who in their hiding
places only waited such a signal to fall upon the hated oppressor.
The victory of Michmash was overwhelming, the mountain country was
cleared of the Philistines, and an independent people began to
enjoy the reign of their first king.
Unhappily Saul did not prove himself so well equipped for the
kingship in character and disposition as in personal prowess.
Jealousy, natural in a king whose claim to authority was so new
and weak, was heightened in Saul by a malady that induced fits of
sullenness and rage. His humility and modesty of other days gave
place to envy, vanity, and cruelty. Even God's express commands
through the same prophet on whose divine commission Saul's claim
to the throne rested were not heeded, for Samuel had to rebuke him
for disobedience and only refrained from publicly rejecting him at
Saul's abject entreaty. Ch. 15:30.
Room was found in Saul's heart for jealousy of the popularity and
success of David, ch. 18:8, the young man of Bethlehem in Judah
whom at first he had loved and attached to his person, ch. 16:21.
Jonathan, though heir to his father's throne and aware that David
had been designated as Jehovah's choice for king, ch. 20:15, 31,
had nothing but affection for David his friend. But Saul pursued
David openly, after failing in repeated secret attempts to make away
with him. And the close of Saul's life is marred by his vindictive
pursuit of his rival, till death in battle with the Philistines at
Mount Gilboa brought the first king of Israel to a miserable end and
left the way open for David to become his successor.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON VII
1. Who shares with Samuel the leadership of Israel in the time
of transition from the judges to the kings, and what relation
did he bear to Samuel?
2. What was a prophet, what is meant by the prophetic order, and
what is Samuel's particular service and distinction among the
prophets?
3. What motive led to the popular demand for a king, and how did
Samuel as God's representative regard this demand?
4. Sketch the character of Saul. What was his achievement for
Israel? Wherein did he fail?
5. Compare Saul and Jonathan in ability and character.
LESSON VIII
David and Solomon: Psalms and Wisdom
The Second Book of Samuel; I Kings, Chapters 1 to 11; I Chronicles,
Chapter 10 to II Chronicles, Chapter 9
One of Saul's sons, Ish-bosheth, for a short time after the death of
his father and brothers in battle, attempted to maintain his right
to succeed Saul on the throne. But when Abner, his kinsman and the
head of the army, turned to David, son of Jesse, who was already
reigning at Hebron as king over Judah, all the tribes followed him.
Both Ish-bosheth and Abner soon perished.
With his new dignity David promptly acquired a new capital, better
suited than Hebron in location and strength to be the nation's
center. He captured the fortress of Jebus, five miles north of
Bethlehem, his old home, from its Canaanitish defenders, and
enlarged, strengthened, and beautified it. Under its ancient name of
Jerusalem he made it both the political and the religious capital of
Israel.
The Ark of the Covenant, which in Eli's time had been captured by
the Philistines, had been returned by them, and for many years
had rested in a private house, was regarded as the very heart and
symbol of the national religion. David therefore brought it first
to Jerusalem, and instead of uniting with it its former housing,
the old Mosaic tabernacle, he gave it a temporary home in a tent,
intending to build a splendid temple when he should have peace. But
war continued through the days of David, and at God's direction the
erection of a temple, save for certain preparations, was left to
Solomon, David's successor.
David was victorious in war. His success showed itself in the
enlargement of Israel's boundaries, the complete subjection--for
the time--of all alien elements in the land, and the alliance with
Hiram, king of Tyre, with the great building operations which this
alliance made possible. A royal palace formed the center of a
court such as other sovereigns maintained, and David's court and
even his family were exposed to the same corrupting influences as
power, wealth, jealousy, and faction have everywhere introduced.
Absalom, his favorite son, ill requited his father's love and trust
by organizing a revolt against him. It failed, but not until it had
driven the king, now an old man, into temporary exile and had let
loose civil war upon the land.
Solomon, designated by David to succeed him, did not gain the throne
without dispute, but the attempt of Adonijah, another son, to seize
the throne failed in spite of powerful support. The forty-year
reign of Solomon was the golden age of Hebrew history--the age to
which all subsequent times looked back. Rapid growth of commerce,
construction, art, and literature reflected the inward condition
of peace and the outward ties with other lands of culture. But
with art came idolatry; with construction came ostentation and
oppression; with commerce came luxury. The splendor of Jerusalem,
wherein Solomon "made silver ... to be as stones, and cedars ... as
the sycomore-trees," I Kings 10:27, contained in itself the seeds of
dissolution.
However, there are two great types of literature which found their
characteristic expression in the days of David and Solomon and are
always associated with their names--the psalm with David, and the
proverb (or, more broadly, "wisdom") with Solomon. Kingdom, temple
and palace have long since passed away, but the Psalter and the
books of Wisdom are imperishable monuments of the united monarchy.
The Psalms
The Psalter is a collection of one hundred and fifty poems, of
various length, meter, and style. As now arranged it is divided
into five books, but there is evidence that earlier collections and
arrangements preceded the present. Among the earliest productions,
judged both by form and by matter, are those psalms which bear the
superscription "of David," though it would not be safe to assert
that every such psalm came from David's own pen or that none not so
labeled is not of Davidic origin. Judged alike from the narrative
in the book of Samuel, and from the traditions scattered in other
books as early as Amos, ch. 6:5, and as late as Chronicles, I Chron.
15:16 to 16:43; ch. 25, David was both a skilled musician himself
and an organizer of music for public worship. It is not surprising,
therefore, to find a body of religious poems ascribed to him,
which not only evidence his piety and good taste, but also, though
individual in tone, are well-adapted to common use at the sanctuary.
The psalms are poems. Their poetry is not simply one of substance,
but also a poetry of form. Rime, our familiar device, is of course
absent, but there is rhythm, although it is not measured in the
same strict way as in most of our poetry. The most striking and
characteristic mark of Hebrew poetic form is the parallel structure:
two companion lines serve together to complete a single thought, as
the second either repeats, supplements, emphasizes, illustrates, or
contrasts with the first.
Proverbs; Job; Ecclesiastes
Poetry is also a term to which the book of Proverbs and most of
the other productions of "Wisdom" are entitled. While they are
chiefly didactic (that is, intended for instruction) instead of
lyric (emotional self-expression), nevertheless the Wisdom books are
almost entirely written in rhythmic parallelism and contain much
matter unsuited to ordinary prose expression. In the Revised Version
the manner of printing shows to the English reader at a glance what
parts are prose and what are poetry (compare, for example, Job,
ch. 2 with Job, ch. 3), though it must be admitted that a hard and
fast line cannot be drawn between them. Compare Eccl., ch. 7 with
Proverbs.
"The wise," as a class of public teachers in the nation (see Jer.
18:18), associated their beginnings with King Solomon (Prov. 24:23;
25:1), whose wisdom is testified to in the book of Kings, as well
as his speaking of "proverbs," that is, pithy sayings easy to
remember and teach, mostly of moral import. I Kings 4:29-34. But
the profoundest theme of wisdom was the moral government of God
as seen in his works and ways. The mysteries with which all men,
to-day as well as in ancient times, must grapple when they seek to
harmonize their faith in a just and good God with such undeniable
facts as prosperous sinners and suffering saints, led to the writing
of such books as Job (the meaning of a good man's adversities) and
Ecclesiastes (the vanity of all that mere experience and observation
of life afford). In the case of these Wisdom books, as in that of
the Psalms, the oldest name--that of the royal founder--is not to
be taken as the exclusive author. Solomon, like David, made the
beginnings; others collected, edited, developed, and completed.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON VIII
1. In what tribe and town did David first reign as king? How did
he secure a new capital when he became king of all Israel? How
and why did he make this the religious capital also?
2. What advantages and disadvantages did David's continual wars,
and his imitation of other kings' courts, bring to him, his
family, and his people?
3. What was David's part in the development of religious poetry?
How does Hebrew poetry differ generally from English poetry in
form? Name the books of the Old Testament written chiefly or
wholly in poetry.
4. Who built the first Temple? Who were "the wise" in Israel,
whom did they venerate as their royal patron, and what did
they aim to accomplish by their writings?
LESSON IX
The Kingdom of Israel
I Kings, Chapter 12 to II Kings, Chapter 17
With the death of Solomon came the lasting division of the tribes
into two kingdoms, a northern and a southern, known as the Kingdom
of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. Rehoboam on his accession
announced a policy of repression and even oppression that alienated
completely the loyalty of Ephraim and the other northern tribes,
which were never attached to the house of David in the same way as
the tribe of Judah was. Under a man of Ephraim, therefore, Jeroboam
the son of Nebat, who in earlier years had challenged even Solomon's
title, the ten tribes revolted from Rehoboam and established a
separate state.
Rehoboam found himself too weak to prevent this secession, and he
and his descendants of David's dynasty had to content themselves
with the narrow boundaries of Judah. To be sure, in Jerusalem they
possessed the authorized center of public worship for the whole
nation. It was to offset this advantage that Jeroboam made Bethel,
that spot associated in the minds of the people with the patriarchs
themselves, his religious capital. And, influenced perhaps by
the Egyptian example of steer worship (for he had long lived as
a fugitive in Egypt in Solomon's reign), he made golden steers
and placed them in the sanctuary at Bethel and in that at Dan in
the extreme north. (See close of Lesson VI.) To these places and
under these visible symbols of brute force, Jeroboam summoned his
people to worship Jehovah. It was the old national religion but
in the degraded form of an image worship forbidden by the Mosaic
Commandments.
A throne thus built on mere expediency could not endure. Jeroboam's
son was murdered after a two years' reign. Nor did this usurper
succeed in holding the throne for his house any longer than
Jeroboam's house had lasted. At length Omri, commander of the army,
succeeded in founding a dynasty that furnished four kings. Ahab, son
of Omri, who held the throne the longest of these four, is the king
with whom we become best acquainted of all the northern monarchs.
This is partly because of the relations between Ahab and Elijah the
prophet. Ahab's name is also linked with that of his queen, the
notorious Jezebel, a princess of Tyre, who introduced the worship of
the Tyrian Baal into Israel and even persecuted all who adhered to
the national religion.
This alliance with Tyre, and the marriage of Ahab's daughter to a
prince of Judah, secured Israel on the north and the south, and left
Ahab free to pursue his father's strong policy toward the peoples
to the east, Moab and Syria. Upon Ahab's death in battle against
Syria, Moab revolted, and the two sons of Ahab, in spite of help
from the house of David in Jerusalem, were unable to stave off the
ruin that threatened the house of Omri. Jehu, supported by the army
in which he was a popular leader, seized the throne, with the usual
assassination of all akin to the royal family. His inspiration to
revolt had been due to Jehovah's prophets, and his program was the
overthrow of Baal worship in favor of the old national religion.
Though Jehu thoroughly destroyed the followers of Jezebel's foreign
gods, he and his sons after him continued to foster the idolatrous
shrines at Bethel and Dan, so that the verdict of the sacred writer
upon them is unfavorable: they "departed not from all the sins of
Jeroboam the son of Nebat, wherewith he made Israel to sin."
Mesha, king of Moab, II Kings 3:4, lived long enough to see his
oppressors, the kings of Omri's house, overthrown and the land of
Israel reduced to great weakness. (See article "Moabite Stone" in
any Bible dictionary.) Jehu's son, Jehoahaz, witnessed the deepest
humiliation of Israel at the hands of Syria. But it was not many
years after Mesha's boasting that affairs took a complete turn.
Jehu's grandson, Jehoash, spurred by Elisha the prophet even on his
deathbed, began the recovery which attained its zenith in the reign
of Jeroboam II, fourth king of Jehu's line. Though little is told
of this reign in the Book of Kings, it is clear that at no time
since Solomon's reign had a king of Israel ruled over so large a
territory. It was the last burst of glory before total extinction.
There is a history lying between the reigns of Jeroboam I, founder
of the Northern Kingdom, and of Jeroboam II, its last prosperous
monarch, which has scarcely been referred to in this brief sketch of
its kings. It is the history of Jehovah's prophets.
Hosea; Amos; Jonah
Reference has already been made to the rise of the prophetic order
as such, in the time of Samuel. (Lesson VII.) With each crisis in
the affairs of the nation God raised up some notable messenger
with a word from him to the people or to the ruler. But all along
the fire of devotion to God and country was kept alive by humbler,
unnamed men, who supplied a sound nucleus of believers even to
this Northern Kingdom with its idolatrous shrines and its usurping
princes. I Kings 18:4; 19:18.
The greatest names are those of Elijah and Elisha. The earlier
struggle to keep Israel true to Jehovah focuses in these two men,
one the worthy successor of the other. Their time marked perhaps
the lowest ebb of true religion in all the history of God's Kingdom
on earth. It is no wonder, therefore, that such stern, strong men
were not only raised up to fight for the God of Moses and Samuel and
David, but also endowed with exceptional powers, to work wonders
and signs for the encouragement of the faithful and the confounding
of idolators and sinners. Such was the purpose of their notable
miracles.
Elijah and Elisha wrote nothing. But in their spirit rose up Hosea
and Amos a century later--men who have left a record of their
prophecies in the books that bear their names. Denunciation of
sin, especially in the higher classes, announcement of impending
punishment for that sin, and promise of a glorious, if distant,
future of pardon, peace, and prosperity through God's grace and
man's sincere repentance--these things form the substance of their
eloquent messages. Hosea is noteworthy for his striking parable of
a patient husband and a faithless wife to illustrate God's love
and Israel's infidelity. Amos, himself a herdsman from Judah sent
north to denounce a king and people not his own, is startling in the
suddenness with which he turns the popular religious ideas against
those who harbor them. See, for example, ch. 3:2, where Amos makes
the unique relation between Jehovah and Israel the reason, not for
Israel's safety from Jehovah's wrath, as the people thought, but
for the absolute certainty of Israel's punishment for all its sins.
These two prophets, the last of the Northern Kingdom, had the
melancholy duty of predicting the utter overthrow of what the first
Jeroboam had set up in rebellion and sin two centuries before.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON IX
1. When, why, and under whose lead did the ten tribes break away
from the house of David?
2. Outline the fortunes of the kings of Israel from Jeroboam I
to Jeroboam II.
3. Who were the outstanding prophets in the Northern Kingdom,
and what was the substance of their messages?
LESSON X
The Kingdom of Judah, to Hezekiah
I Kings, Chapter 12 to II Kings, Chapter 17; II Chronicles, Chapters
10 to 28; Obadiah; Joel; Micah; Isaiah (in part)
The revolt of Jeroboam and the ten northern tribes reduced the
dominion ruled by Rehoboam, grandson of David, to narrow bounds.
Before his disastrous reign was over, Judah was still further
humiliated by an invasion under Shishak, a Pharaoh of the
twenty-second dynasty of Egypt, who despoiled Jerusalem of the
treasures which Solomon had amassed. After the death of Rehoboam and
the short reign of his son, Abijam, Judah was ruled successively by
Asa and Jehoshaphat, each succeeding his father peacefully and each
reigning long and, on the whole, prosperously. Another invasion from
the south which threatened to be as disastrous as that of Shishak,
under "Zerah the Ethiopian" was repelled by Asa. Internal reforms,
both religious and civil, were carried out by these vigorous rulers.
The natural rivalry and intermittent warfare between north and
south, which had arisen through the division under Rehoboam, ceased
for a time after Jehoshaphat entered into alliance with King Ahab
and took Athaliah, Ahab's daughter, as wife for his son Joram. The
kings of Samaria and Jerusalem made common cause against Syria and
Moab, and a temporary success seemed to crown the new policy. But
prophets of Jehovah repeatedly warned the king who sat on David's
throne of the danger to the true religion from such an alliance with
Baal worshipers.
It was not long before their warnings were justified by the facts.
Athaliah, Joram's queen, was the daughter not only of Ahab but also
of Jezebel and brought with her to Jerusalem the fierce spirit and
heathen habits of her Tyrian mother. King Ahaziah her son lost his
life through his close association with King Jehoram of Israel,
his uncle, for Jehu made away with both kings at the same time,
and with all the princes of Judah, kinsmen of Ahaziah, on whom
he could lay his hands. The old tigress at Jerusalem, Athaliah,
now turned upon her own flesh and blood, the children of Ahaziah,
and murdered them all so as to secure the power for herself. One
grandson alone, the infant Joash, escaped, saved by an aunt who hid
him and his nurse from the cruel queen mother. Six years later this
child was proclaimed king in the Temple courts by Jehoiada, the high
priest. Athaliah was slain, and a new era began in Judah with the
destruction of Baal worship and the repair of Jehovah's Temple.
Joash was too weak to do more than buy off the king of Syria when
his army threatened Jerusalem, and he himself met his death in a
conspiracy. The same fate befell his son Amaziah, after a reign that
promised well but was wrecked on the king's ambition to subdue the
Northern Kingdom under him. Uzziah (or Azariah) succeeded to the
throne, though for half of his long reign he and his kingdom seem to
have been in a state of vassalage to Jeroboam II, the powerful ruler
of Israel. The latter part of Uzziah's reign was more prosperous, in
spite of the king's pitiable state--for he was stricken with leprosy
and had to live apart. It was on this account that he associated his
son Jotham with himself, and during the sixteen years of Jotham's
reign--most of which was included within the long nominal reign of
Uzziah--the Philistines, Ammonites, and Arabians were defeated in
warfare, while considerable building both in and out of the capital
helped to prepare the little kingdom for the troublous days just
ahead.
The mighty kingdom of Assyria, with its capital at Nineveh on
the Tigris River, was the force which God used to punish his
faithless people. Lying beyond the kingdoms of Syria, Israel's
nearest neighbors on the north, Assyria was not at first felt to
be the menace which in the end it proved to be. Whenever Assyria
was strong, Syria was weak, and the king in Samaria could breathe
freely. But there came a day when a king of unusual power ascended
the throne at Nineveh, Tiglath-pileser (or Pul, as he was also
called, see II Kings 15:19, 29), and the fate of both Syria and
Israel was sealed.
Ahaz, the son of Jotham who had just died, saw in this Assyrian the
means of delivering Judah out of the hands of Pekah, king of Israel,
and Rezin, king of Syria, who had joined forces to capture Jerusalem
and put a king of their own on the throne of David. By a great
present Ahaz bought the support of Tiglath-pileser, who sent an army
to attack Judah's foes. Syria was devastated, the inhabitants were
carried away captive from all the eastern and northern parts of
Israel (Gilead and Galilee), Phoenicia and Philistia were overrun,
and Ahaz, among other kings, went to Damascus in person to do homage
to this irresistible conqueror.
In the Northern Kingdom, reduced now to little more than the central
highlands of Ephraim and Manasseh, Hoshea, a protegé of the Assyrian
king, reigned for a few years. But he and his foolish advisers,
unable to read the signs of the times, looked to Egypt for help
and revolted. This time the end had come. Shalmaneser, now on the
Assyrian throne, came against Samaria, and after a siege lasting
almost three years, took and destroyed it. The whole population was
carried away, after the drastic policy of deportation practiced
by Assyria, and an alien population was introduced to take their
places. Thus ended the Northern Kingdom after lasting a little over
two centuries. And thus began that strange mixed people, known as
the Samaritans, who settled in the central part of the Holy Land.
The effect of Israel's doom upon the minds of the king and people
of Judah may be imagined. From the pages of Micah and Isaiah,
contemporary prophets in Judah, can be seen how God was speaking
to Judah through the ruin of Israel. Ahaz's policy of relying on
human help from Assyria instead of divine help from Jehovah was
refuted by its outcome. With Syria and Samaria ruined, there lay
nothing between Jerusalem and the Assyrian. And it is in Hezekiah's
reign--the next after that of Ahaz--that the ruthless conqueror from
Nineveh is found overrunning Judah itself. How king, prophet, and
people met that crisis will begin the next lesson, for it belongs
to the period when the Southern Kingdom is all that remained of the
organized Hebrew nation in Palestine.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON X
1. What were the relations between the kingdoms of Judah and
Israel in general?
2. Who altered these relations for a time? How? With what
consequences for Judah's politics and religion?
3. Who was Joash, and how did he come to the throne?
4. What was the occasion of Judah's first intimate contact with
Assyria? Discuss Ahaz's policy in the light of Isa. 7:1-9.
5. What were the stages in the downfall of the Northern Kingdom?
What became of the conquered people, and who replaced them?
See II Kings, ch. 17.
LESSON XI
Judah, from Hezekiah to the Exile
II Kings, Chapters 18 to 25; II Chronicles, Chapters 29 to
36; Isaiah (in part); Nahum; Habakkuk; Zephaniah; Jeremiah;
Lamentations; Ezekiel, Chapters 1 to 32
Although outwardly Judah appeared to be the same after the fall of
the Northern Kingdom as before, it was not so. A very different
situation confronted Hezekiah from that which had confronted his
father Ahaz when he called on Assyria for help against Syria and
Israel. Now there were no "buffer states" between Assyria's empire
and little Judah. And it was only a score of years after Samaria
fell when Jerusalem felt the full force of Assyria. Sennacherib,
fourth in that remarkable list of the six kings[1] who made Nineveh
mistress of Asia, sent an army to besiege Jerusalem, with a summons
to Hezekiah to surrender his capital.
[1] Tiglath-pileser, 745-727 B.C.; Shalmaneser, 727-722; Sargon,
722-705; Sennacherib, 705-681; Esar-haddon, 680-668; Ashurbanipal,
668-626.
A different spirit ruled this king. Isaiah, the same great prophet
who had counseled Ahaz to resist Pekah and Rezin but had failed to
move him to faith in Jehovah, found now in Ahaz's son a vital faith
in the God of Israel in this far sorer crisis. In response to that
faith Isaiah was commissioned by God to assure king and people of
a great deliverance. The case, to all human seeming, was hopeless.
But the resources at God's disposal are boundless, and at one blow
"the angel of Jehovah" reduced the proud Assyrian host to impotency
and drove them away in retreat. II Kings 19:35. Scribes who record
the achievements of ancient monarchs are not accustomed to betray
any of the failures of their royal heroes. But between the lines
of Sennacherib's records we can read confirmation of the Bible's
report of some great catastrophe to Assyrian arms. Jehovah rewarded
the faith of his people in him.
The seventh century before Christ, which began just after this
event, witnessed both the rise of Assyria to its greatest height,
and its sudden fall before the Chaldeans, a people from the Persian
Gulf, who succeeded in mastering ancient Babylon and in winning
for it a greater glory than it had ever known in former times.
Even in Hezekiah's reign these Chaldeans, under their leader
Merodach-baladan, were already challenging the supremacy of Nineveh,
and in doing so were seeking allies in the west. When the king of
Judah yielded to the dictates of pride and showed to these Chaldean
ambassadors his treasures, Isaiah announced to him that the final
ruin of Judah was to come in future days from this source, and not
from Nineveh as might then have been anticipated.
Manasseh, Hezekiah's successor, was indeed taken as a captive to
Babylon for a time, but the captor was a king of Assyria. II Chron.
33:11. Manasseh was thus punished for his great personal wickedness,
for he is pictured as the worst of all the descendants of David, an
idolator and a cruel persecutor. Yet his reign was long, and at its
close he is said to have repented and turned to Jehovah. But this
did not prevent his son Amon from following in his evil ways. A
revolt of the people within two years removed Amon, however, and set
his young son, Josiah, upon the throne. Josiah's reign is important
for the history of Judah.
By putting together all that can be gleaned from Kings, Chronicles,
and the prophets, it can be seen that Josiah gradually came more and
more under the influence of the party in Judah that sought to purge
the nation of its idolatry and bring it back, not merely to the
comparatively pure worship and life of Hezekiah's and David's days,
but to an ideal observance of the ancient Law of Moses. The climax
in the progressive reformation in Judah was reached in Josiah's
eighteenth year, 622 B.C., when the king and all the people entered
into a "solemn league and covenant" to obey the Law of Moses both as
a religious obligation and as a social program.
The Law book which was found while workmen were restoring the Temple
passed through the hands of Hilkiah, the high priest, who therefore
committed himself, together with the priests, to this reform. And
what the true prophets of Jehovah thought of it may be seen, for
example, from Jer., ch. 11, which tells that this prophetic leader
preached in the streets of Jerusalem and through the cities of
Judah, saying, "Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them."
Josiah attempted to attach to Jerusalem all those elements in the
territory of the former kingdom of Israel which were in sympathy
with Jehovah's Law, and at Bethel itself he defiled the old
idolatrous altar and slew its priests. In fact, it was on northern
ground, at Megiddo, that Josiah met his tragic end and the new wave
of patriotic enthusiasm was shattered, when, in battle against
Pharaoh-necho and a great Egyptian army, the king of Judah was
killed.
Josiah's four successors were weak and unworthy of David's line.
After Jehoahaz, the son whom the people put on the throne to succeed
Josiah, had been removed by Necho, Jehoiakim, another son, reigned
for eleven years. He owed his throne to the Pharaoh and was at first
tributary to him. But early in his reign came the first of many
campaigns of the Chaldeans into Palestine, as Nebuchadnezzar, master
of Asia, extended his power farther and farther south after crushing
the Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 B.C. Jehoiakim had to bow to
Nebuchadnezzar's yoke and seems to have lost his life in a fruitless
attempt to shake it off. A great number of the leaders of Judah,
nobles, priests, soldiers, and craftsmen, were deported, together
with Jehoiachin, the young son of Jehoiakim, who had worn the crown
but three months, 598 B.C.
For eleven years more, however, the remnant of Judah maintained a
feeble state under Zedekiah, a third son of Josiah and the last of
David's line to mount the throne. In spite of his solemn oath to the
king of Babylon and in the face of the express warnings from Jehovah
through his prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, this weak and faithless
king revolted from Babylon, put his trust in the Egyptian army,
and prepared to stand a siege. But Jerusalem's end had now come,
as Samaria's had come before, and through a breach in the northern
wall the Chaldean army entered; the king fled and was captured,
blinded, and deported, and the whole city, including houses, walls,
gates, and even the Temple--that famous Temple of Solomon which had
stood nearly four centuries--was totally destroyed, 587 B.C. All
that remained of the higher classes, together with the population
of Jerusalem and the chief towns, were carried away to Babylonia,
to begin that exile which had been threatened even in the Law,
and predicted by many of the prophets, as the extreme penalty for
disobedience and idolatry.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON XI
1. How did the fall of Samaria affect the Kingdom of Judah?
2. How did Hezekiah meet the threats of Sennacherib? What was
the outcome?
3. Which king carried through a reformation of religion? What
was the basis of the covenant he imposed on Judah? How did he
meet his end?
4. Describe the relations of the Chaldeans to Judah in the time
of Hezekiah, of Jehoiakim, of Zedekiah?
5. When did Jerusalem fall? Did it fall unexpectedly and without
warning?
LESSON XII
The Exile and the Restoration
Ezekiel, Chapters 33 to 48; Daniel; Ezra, Chapters 1, 2
When the northern tribes were carried away by Assyria they lost
their identity in the mass of the nations. Only individuals from
among them attached themselves to the organized nucleus of Judah.
From that time the one tribe of Judah stood out so prominently as
representative of the whole nation, that "Jew" (that is, man of
Judah) has been equivalent to Hebrew. Paul says that he was of the
tribe of Benjamin; the aged prophetess Anna is said to have been of
the tribe of Asher, Luke 2:36, and all the priests were of course
of the tribe of Levi; yet long before New Testament times all such
Israelites were commonly referred to as "Jews."
Judah did not lose its identity among the nations when Jerusalem
fell. The Jews who were not deported, among them the prophet
Jeremiah, were put under the government of a certain Jewish noble,
Gedaliah, who ruled the land from Mizpah as representative of the
great king. Many fugitives returned to live under his sway when
they found that it was beneficent. But Gedaliah was soon murdered
by a prince of David's house, whom the king of Ammon had set on to
do this mischief and then received and protected. The other Jewish
leaders feared to remain within reach of the king of Babylon after
this insult to him, and against the warnings of Jeremiah they all
went down to Egypt. That removal ended all organized Jewish life in
Palestine for nearly half a century.
In Babylon, however, an event occurred long before that time had
elapsed, which marked the political recognition of Judah's separate
identity as a nation. That event was the release of Jehoiachin
from prison by the new king of Babylon, Evil-merodach, successor
of Nebuchadnezzar. Jehoiachin, it will be remembered, was the
unfortunate prince of David's line who held the throne only three
months after his father Jehoiakim's death and was then deported to
Babylon in 598. From that time on, through all the remainder of
Nebuchadnezzar's long reign, he had been imprisoned in Babylon. But
now he was not only released, but given a pension from the royal
treasury for the rest of his life and a standing superior to all the
other captive princes in Babylon.
This was in 562, and many Jewish hearts must already have begun to
beat with fresh hope, as the old loyalty to David's house flamed
up, and the promises of a restoration recorded in the old Law and
the Prophets were echoed by the prophet of the Exile, Ezekiel. This
man, himself a priest by birth, had been carried to Babylon at
the same time as Jehoiachin, and through all those years of doom
had there preached to his countrymen, first to the portion exiled
with him while Jerusalem still stood, but after 587 to the whole
people united in a common catastrophe. His voice had even reached
to Jerusalem, as he joined Jeremiah in reminding King Zedekiah of
his oath to Nebuchadnezzar. With the elevation of Jehoiachin and the
stirring of the national hopes, Ezekiel became the prophet of hope.
He pictures the breath of Jehovah stirring to life the dry bones
in the valley of death. Ezek., ch. 37. And he warns the optimistic
people that only as God takes away from them their old stony heart
and gives them a heart of flesh, and sprinkles clean water upon them
to cleanse them from their pollution through idolatry, can they
be fit to form the new community wherein God shall indeed reign.
Ch. 36:25, 26. What such a community might outwardly and visibly
resemble, Ezekiel pictures in a long, detailed, descriptive vision
wherewith his book closes. Chs. 40 to 48.
Another outstanding Jew of the Exile was a man of an entirely
different type. Daniel, a noble youth carried away from Judah to
Babylon at the first clash of Nebuchadnezzar's armies with the
Jews, 605 B.C., and brought up at the court, succeeded through
interpreting a dream of the king in attracting his notice and
winning his favor, much as Joseph had done in ancient Egypt. Dan.,
ch. 2. From his position of political power, Daniel was able,
doubtless, to minister to the interests of his brethren, the Jewish
exiles. Possibly it is to him that Jehoiachin owed his astonishing
reversal of fortune. At any rate Belshazzar, the last ruler of the
Chaldean state, still maintained Daniel in power, in spite of the
very solemn warning of ruin to that state which Daniel fearlessly
pronounced. Ch. 5. When the Persians succeeded the Chaldeans as
masters of Babylon, this Jewish statesman still held his high
post, and retained it in spite of the bitter enmity of officials
who used his Jewish faith as a handle against him. Ch. 6. In fact,
there is no better way to understand the favor accorded the Jews
by Cyrus, the Persian conqueror, and the edicts preserved in Ezra
1:2-4; 6:3-5, than by supposing that Daniel, who had the king's ear,
brought to his attention the earlier prophecies of Jeremiah and of
other spokesmen for Jehovah, God of the Jews.
Certainly, however the affair was managed, it turned out entirely
to the Jews' liking. All who were willing to return to Palestine
were permitted and encouraged to go. They were assisted by the gifts
of their brethren who could not, or would not, leave Babylon. They
bore back with them the old vessels for the service of the sanctuary
which Nebuchadnezzar had carried off. And, best of all, they took
with them royal authority to erect the Temple of Jehovah on its
ancient site, at the expense of the king of Persia, that is, out of
taxes and tribute he remitted. At their head went a prince of the
old royal house, and a high priest who was grandson of that high
priest whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed half a century before. Their
number totaled forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, with
enough slaves in addition to make the entire company number nearly
fifty thousand.
Their purpose was threefold: to reoccupy the Holy Land, to rebuild
Jerusalem, and to erect a temple where Solomon's Temple had stood.
We should be likely to rate the importance of these three objects
in the same order as that in which they have just been named. But
not so the believing Jew. It was above all else the sacred house
of his God that he wanted to see restored, so that the prescribed
sacrifices of the Law might be resumed, the nation's sin might thus
be atoned for, and God might once more visibly dwell among his
people. All else was in order to this one great end. The origin
of Judaism, which lies in the movements of this time, cannot be
understood unless this supreme motive is clearly grasped. How
Judaism developed under the new conditions will be the subject of
the next lesson.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON XII
1. What is meant by "a Jew"?
2. How did government of Hebrews by a Hebrew come to an end in
Palestine for the first time since Saul's day?
3. What was the first political event to arouse the exiled Jews
from their depression?
4. Compare Ezekiel and Daniel in their personality, position,
and audience.
5. When Cyrus captured Babylon in 539, what did he do for the
Jews, and how came he to do it?
6. How many Jews returned to Palestine under Cyrus, and what was
their uppermost motive?
LESSON XIII
The Jewish State Under Persia
Ezra, Chapters 3 to 10; Esther; Nehemiah; Haggai; Zechariah; Malachi
For two centuries Judea, like the rest of western Asia, was under
the domination of the Persians, whose great royal names, Cyrus,
Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, are familiar to every student of
history. The Old Testament spans one of those two centuries of
Persian rule, 539-430, while for the other century, 430-332, we are
dependent for the little we know about the Jews upon some documents
recently discovered in Egypt, an occasional notice in classical
historians, and the brief narrative of Josephus, the Jewish
historian of the first Christian century.
Even in the century covered by the books of the Bible there are long
stretches of silence separating periods that are fairly reported.
First comes the time of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the leaders, civil
and religious, under whom the Jews returned and erected the Temple.
This story carries us, though with a seventeen-year gap in its
midst, from 538, the year after Cyrus took Babylon, to 515, the
sixth year of Darius the Great, and is recorded in the first six
chapters of the book of Ezra. To help us in understanding this time
we have also the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, though the last
six chapters of Zechariah belong to another age.
After the completion of the new Temple the curtain falls on Judea
and, save for a single verse, Ezra 4:6, we hear no more of it for
fifty-seven years. However, the interesting story of Esther belongs
in these years, for the Ahasuerus of the Bible is the Xerxes of
Greek history--that vain, fickle, and voluptuous monarch who was
beaten at Salamis and Platæa. The Jews must have been a part of the
vast host with which he crossed from Asia to Europe. But the drama
unfolded in the book of Esther was played far from Palestine, at
Susa, the Persian capital.
With the seventh year of the next reign--that of Artaxerxes I--the
curtain rises again on Judea, as we accompany thither the little
band of Jews whom Ezra, the priestly "scribe," brought back with him
from Babylonia to Jerusalem. This account is found in the last four
chapters of the book of Ezra, most of it in the form of personal
reminiscences covering less than one year.
The curtain falls again abruptly at the end of Ezra's memoirs, and
rises as abruptly on Nehemiah's memoirs at the beginning of the book
which bears his name. But there is every reason to believe that the
letters exchanged between the Samaritans and the Persian court,
preserved in the fourth chapter of Ezra, belong to this interval of
thirteen years between the two books of Ezra and Nehemiah. For this
alone can explain two riddles: first, who are "the men that came up
from thee unto Jerusalem," Ezra 4:12, if they are not Ezra and his
company, ch. 7? And second, what else could explain the desolate
condition of Jerusalem and Nehemiah's emotion on learning of it,
Neh. 1:3, if not the mischief wrought by the Jews' enemies when
"they went in haste to Jerusalem," armed with a royal injunction,
and "made them to cease by force and power"? Ezra 4:23.
Some persons are inclined to date the prophet Malachi at just this
time also, shortly before Nehemiah's arrival. But it is probably
better to place the ministry of this last of the Old Testament
prophets at the end of Nehemiah's administration. Nehemiah's points
of contact with Malachi are most numerous in his last chapter, ch.
13, in which he writes of his later visit to Jerusalem. Compare Neh.
13:6 with ch. 1:1.
In Cyrus' reign the great Return was followed immediately by the
erection of an altar and the resumption of sacrifice. Preparations
for rebuilding the Temple, however, and even the laying of the
corner stone, proved a vain beginning, as the Samaritans, jealous of
the newcomers and angered by their own rebuff as fellow worshipers
with the Jews, succeeded in hindering the prosecution of the work
for many years. Ezra 3:1 to 4:5.
It was not until the second year of Darius' reign, 520, nearly
two decades later, that the little community, spurred out of
their selfishness and lethargy by Haggai and Zechariah, arose and
completed the new Temple, in the face of local opposition but with
royal support. Ch. 4:24 to 6:15.
Fifty-seven years later, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, 458,
came Ezra with some fifteen hundred men, large treasures, and
sweeping privileges confirmed by a royal edict, the text of which he
has preserved in the seventh chapter of his book. He was given the
king's support in introducing the Law of God as the law of the land,
binding upon all its inhabitants, whom he was to teach its contents
and punish for infractions of it. How Ezra used his exceptional
powers in carrying out the reform he judged most needed--the
dissolution of mixed marriages between Jew and Gentile forbidden by
the Law--is told in detail in his own vivid language in chs. 9, 10.
It helps us to understand Malachi's zeal in this same matter. Mal.
2:11. And the difficulty of this reform appears also from Nehemiah's
memoirs, since the same abuse persisted twenty-five years after Ezra
fought it. Neh. 13:23-27.
After the failure to fortify Jerusalem recorded in Ezra 4:8-23,
Nehemiah, a Jew in high station and favor at Artaxerxes' court,
obtained from his king a personal letter, appointing him governor
of Judea for a limited time, with the special commission to rebuild
the walls and gates of Jerusalem. The same bitter hostility which
the Samaritans and other neighbors in Palestine throughout had
shown toward the returned Jews, reached its climax in the efforts
of Sanballat and others in public and private station to hinder
Nehemiah's purpose. But with great energy and bravery, and with a
personal appeal and example that swept all into the common stream
of patriotic service, Nehemiah built the ruined walls and gates
in fifty-two days, instituted social reforms, ch. 5, and imposed
a covenant on all the people to obey the Law which Ezra read
and expounded. Chs. 8 to 10. Elements in the little nation that
joined with his enemies to discredit and even to assassinate him
were banished or curbed. The origin of the peculiar sect of the
Samaritan is connected with Nehemiah through his rigor in banishing
a grandson of the high priest who had married Sanballat's daughter.
This disloyalty of the priesthood is also one of Malachi's chief
indictments against his nation, and the basis of his promise that
a great reformer, an "Elijah," should arise to prepare the sinful
people for the coming of their God.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON XIII
1. How long after the Return was the Temple finished? Who
hindered? Who helped?
2. What are the scene and the date of the book of Esther?
3. Compare the return of the Jews to Jerusalem under Ezra with
that under Zerubbabel (_a_) in date, (_b_) in numbers, (_c_)
in purpose and result.
4. Tell the story of Nehemiah: the occasion of his return, his
enemies, his achievements. In what did Ezra help him?
5. Associate the ministry of the three prophets of this period
after the Exile with the leaders and movements they
respectively helped.
LESSON XIV
Israel's Religious Life
It has often been said that while civilization owes its art and
letters to Greece and its law and order to Rome, it owes its
religion and ethics to Palestine. This is true, within limits,
provided we understand that what Israel contributed was not the
product of its "native genius for religion," but was due to the
persistent grace of its God, who took this "fewest of all peoples"
and made of it the custodian of his revelation and the cradle of his
redemption for the whole world. When, however, the Hebrew claimed
preëminence through these two things, a saving God and a righteous
Law, it was no idle boast. So Moses eloquently asks in Deuteronomy:
"What great nation is there, that hath a god so nigh unto them,
as Jehovah our God is whensoever we call upon him? And what great
nation is there, that hath statutes and ordinances so righteous as
all this law, which I set before you this day?" Deut. 4:7, 8.
Religion as developed in Israel had two sides, an inward and an
outward. On its inward side it consisted of a faith in Jehovah
cherished in the hearts of the people, together with the sentiments
of reverence and love, and the purposes of loyalty and consecration,
which grew out of that faith. On its outward side religion consisted
of certain objects and ceremonies, adapted to express by act and
symbol the relation between God and his people.
But there is also another distinction often made in speaking of
religion, the distinction between individual religion and national
religion. Each member of the Hebrew nation held a personal relation
to his God. The Law of God addressed him individually as it said
to him, "Thou shalt not." And, on a still higher level, Moses
summed up that Law for him in these memorable words, "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." Yet the entire body of
Israel, as such, held a relation to God which his spokesmen are
continually trying to illustrate and enrich by all sorts of figures.
God is Israel's "Rock," "Possessor" or "Purchaser," "Redeemer,"
"Father"--until Isaiah can even say to the nation, "Thy Maker is
thy husband," and Hosea and Ezekiel can portray God's dealings with
Israel under the allegory of a marriage.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that all the inward
religion was individual and all the outward religion national.
There was provision in the ceremonial law, not only for sacrifices
on a national scale, like those of the day of atonement, but also
for each man to express outwardly his own penitence or devotion or
gratitude or obligation to God by means of a personal sacrifice,
publicly offered but privately planned and provided. And, on the
other hand, the psalms and the prophets cannot be understood, unless
we realize the general religious life of the nation that lies back
of these highly individual forms of expression. That was why, when
David thinking of himself could write, "The Lord is my shepherd,"
the whole people could take that sentence and the psalm it begins
for use in public worship as the collective expression of Israel's
trust in its God.
The great fact of sin is responsible for the perversion of the true
relation between these different varieties of religious life. In
theory, every symbolic object and action at tabernacle or Temple
was merely the outward expression of an inward idea or feeling or
resolve. Every smoking sacrifice on the altar was supposed to come
from an offerer drawing near to God in the sincere belief "that he
is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him." Heb.
11:6. But in fact the offerer was in constant danger of looking upon
all the gifts and victims he brought as so many bribes with which
he might buy the favor of an offended God, or, worse still, might
obtain an "indulgence" to do some evil deed he planned. This is what
Jeremiah means when he cries, "Will ye steal, murder, and commit
adultery, and swear falsely ... and come and stand before me in this
house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that
ye may do all these abominations?" Jer. 7:9, 10.
If the private worshiper was in danger of abusing the worship of
God in this way, how much more was the priest, the professional
sacrificer and celebrant, in danger of looking upon all his duties
as a kind of authorized magic! "Do this external act, and that
inward benefit will surely follow." "Offer this lamb, and cease
to think about that black sin for which the lamb is the official
price." Yes, even this: "Go and do it again, but don't forget to
bring another lamb!" Is it any wonder that at length Malachi, after
lashing the priests of his late day for their laziness, cynicism,
and greed, cries out in Jehovah's name, "Oh that there were one
among you that would shut the doors [of the Temple], that ye might
not kindle fire on mine altar in vain!" Mal. 1:10.
All along the course of Hebrew history we find prophets and
psalmists protesting against this sinful perversion of ceremonial
religion. See for example I Sam. 15:22; Ps. 40:6-8; 50; Isa.
1:10-17; Micah 6:6-8.
And yet it would be a mistake to say that the prophet stood for
pure and spiritual religion, and the priest for merely external,
formal religion. Some of the greatest of the prophets, as Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Zechariah, were priests. And how far the prophets could
become professional declaimers and deceivers may be seen, for
example, from Micah 3:5-8.
The Hebrew prophets, notably Amos and Hosea, are sometimes
represented as the "inventors" of "ethical monotheism," that is, of
religion as consisting in the worship of one God, who is the moral
ideal of man and demands moral living in man. But in fact, that is
precisely the basis of all genuine Old Testament religion, from the
very beginning. See Heb., ch. 11. And, particularly, that is the
basis of the entire Law, even of the ceremonial law. For that Law
must not be judged by its sinful abuse, but by the principles of
righteousness, holiness, repentance, and fellowship that underlie
every article in the sanctuary, every sacrifice on the altar, every
rite prescribed and observance commanded. At their best the priests
were allies of the true prophets, and external religion as centering
in the Temple was for the time a fitting expression of Israel's
personal and national faith. If it had not been so, then such
psalms as Psalms 24, 42, 65, 84, 122 could never have been written,
preserved, and used.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON XIV
1. What ground had Israel for "glorying"? See Rom. 9:4, 5.
2. Give illustrations to show that individual as well as
national religion in Israel expressed itself externally, and
that spiritual as well as ceremonial religion belonged to both
the nation and the individual.
3. What sinful abuse of sacrifice were the prophets constantly
attacking? Did they thereby condemn Temple, altar, priesthood,
and ceremonial law in themselves?
4. Were all the prophets spiritually minded, or all the priests
merely "professional"? Give instances from history of
alliances between prophets and priests.
LESSON XV
"The Coming One"
The Old Testament points forward. The whole impression it leaves
upon us is that of an unfinished thing. Its history moves toward a
goal outside of itself. Its religion is a religion of expectation.
All its institutions are typical, that is, they represent more than
themselves, because they belong to a larger order of things which
appears imperfectly in them.
In the last lesson we saw how priest and prophet had their own
place in Israel. But both priest and prophet also typified a
perfect priesthood and a perfect prophecy, to be realized under
ideal conditions which were never present in those times. When, for
example, Aaron made atonement for the sins of the nation once each
year, as provided in Lev., ch. 16, he had to present first the blood
of the bullock which was the sin offering for himself, before he
presented the blood of the goat which was the sin offering for the
people. But ideally, in his position as mediator between God and the
sinful people, he was a sinless man; the blood of the bullock and
the pure, white garments he put on were supposed to indicate that
he was sinless for the moment. Nothing could be clearer than that
he typified a perfect high priest for God's people, who should be
really a sinless man--one who needed no mechanism of altar, victim,
and dress to make him pure from personal sin. See Heb., chs. 5 to
10, especially ch. 7:26-28.
Again Moses looks forward to the realization in the future of the
ideal communication between God and his people typified in the
prophet. "A prophet," says he, "Jehovah thy God will raise up unto
thee." "From the midst of thee, like unto me." Deut. 18:15-19. This
ideal prophet will perfectly hear and perfectly transmit divine
truth to men. It was on the basis of this promise that many persons
described our Lord as "the prophet," meaning thereby that perfect
prophet promised by Moses. John 1:21, 25; 7:40.
But there was another institution of Old Testament times which more
than prophet or priest was associated in the people's minds with
the ideal future. This was kingship. God himself was theoretically
King--sole King--of Israel. Isa. 33:22. But at the entreaty of
his sinful and harassed people he instructed Samuel to "make them
a king." And while Samuel warned them of the evils which the
monarchy would bring with it because of the sinfulness of the men
who should be king, he nevertheless set up a throne that by its
very nature was unique. The king of Israel was in a peculiar sense
the representative of Jehovah. He ruled for God. He was his own
"anointed," set apart for the exercise of supreme authority over
God's people on earth and entitled to their religious as well as
patriotic devotion. See, for example, Psalms 21, 101.
After the failure of Saul to obey God's instructions, Samuel
anointed, at God's dictation and against his own human judgment,
David the son of Jesse. This man proved himself, not indeed sinless
nor the ideal king, but a man after God's heart, Acts 13:22, because
his dominant purpose was to do God's will. To David therefore was
given the remarkable promise contained in II Sam., ch. 7. In a
word, this promise was an irrevocable, eternal "covenant," granting
sovereignty to David's "house"--that is, his posterity considered as
a unit--over God's Kingdom on earth.
The story of how men came to understand better and better the
vastness of this covenant, which Isaiah calls "the sure mercies of
David," ch. 55:3, forms the subject of that special Old Testament
study called "Messianic Prophecy." In the psalms and in the
prophecies we are able to trace a growing faith, that by an ideal
king of David's line Jehovah will finally work his long delayed
will in and through Israel. This Person is commonly called "the
Messiah," because "Messiah" means "Anointed." Its Greek equivalent
is "the Christ." While other persons also were anointed with oil
when they assumed office, kings were always so anointed and the idea
belongs peculiarly to kingship. By the time our Lord appeared, no
other side of the work which this ideal, promised, longed-for Coming
One was to do, was so prominent as that of ruling for God as the
King of Israel. For this reason Jesus of Nazareth is known to all
who believe in his claims as "the Christ," and such believers are
thence called "Christians." This title of Christ connects Jesus with
the line of David, to which he actually belonged by descent, and it
also connects him with the promise to David, of which he was the
heir and the fulfillment.
We have thus seen that "the Coming One," Luke 7:19; John 11:27,
toward whom the eyes of Israel were directed, was to be prophet,
priest, and king. In all these offices and the various duties they
involved he was to be the one chosen from among the people--a man
therefore, "servant of the servants of God." Yet this is not all.
Alongside these promises there was a promise also that Jehovah
himself would come to dwell among his people. The Holy of Holies,
with its Ark of the Presence and its Mercy seat for revelation and
atonement, was itself typical of an ideal presence of God among men.
And through psalm and prophet we can trace this promise also. Now
it is terrible with its threat to sinners, and now it is glorious
with its hope for the oppressed. At length in Malachi we read in
the clearest words, "The Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to
his temple." Mal. 3:1, 5. Preceded by his "messenger" to "prepare
the way before him," Israel's divine Lord himself is to come for
judgment and salvation. See also Ps. 96:13; 98:9.
It was not made so plain to the men of ancient Israel just how these
two lines of promise were to be united, as it appears to us now in
the light of later facts. But we, who worship Jesus of Nazareth not
only as "Son of David according to the flesh," but as divine Lord
from heaven, "in two distinct natures and one person for ever,"
can look back on those old prophecies of "men who spake from God,
being moved by the Holy Spirit." II Peter 1:21. We can see in them
God's purpose to make this great Son of David a true "Immanuel,"
Isa. 7:14--a Person in whom God actually is "with us." God gave to
him such names as "Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace," because he should really be all that
these names imply. Isa. 9:6. For the Child who was born in little
Bethlehem, the "city of David," was not merely one who should be
"ruler in Israel," but also one "whose goings forth are from of old,
from everlasting." Micah 5:2.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON XV
1. How did the priests and prophets in Israel point forward to
an ideal Priest and Prophet?
2. What was the relation of Israel's king to Jehovah? In whose
"house" was this office made eternal? In what Person has this
promise been fulfilled?
3. How was the promise that God himself should be "the Coming
One" consistent with the promise of a human Prophet, Priest,
and King? Where is it indicated in the Old Testament that both
promises might be fulfilled in one Person?