Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders
THE CHOSEN PEOPLE
A COMPENDIUM OF SACRED AND CHURCH HISTORY FOR SCHOOL-CHILDREN.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE."
"God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by
His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things."--_Heb_. i, l,
"Yes; so it was ere Jesus came--
Alternate then His Altar flame
Blazed up and died away,
And Silence took her torn with Song,
And Solitude with the fair throng
That owned the festal day;
For in earth's daily circuit then
Only one border
Reflected to the Seraphs' ken,
Heaven's light and order.
But now to the revolving sphere
We point and Say, No desert here,
No waste so dark and lone
But to the hour of sacrifice
Comes daily in its turn, and lies
In light beneath the Throne.
Each point of time, from morn till eve.
From eve to morning,
The shrine doth from the Spouse receive
Praise and adorning."--_Lyra Innocentium_.
FIFTH EDITION.
PREFACE.
In drawing up this little book, at the request of several friends, the
Author has been chiefly guided by experience of what children require to
be told, in order to come to an intelligent perception of the scope of
the Scripture narrative treated historically. Since a general view can
hardly be obtained without brevity, many events have been omitted in
the earlier part, and those only touched upon which have a peculiar
significance in tracing the gradual preparation for the work of
Redemption; and though one great object has been the illustration of
Prophecy, the course of types has been passed over, lest the plain
narrative should be confused, since types are rather subjects of
devotional contemplation than of history, and they should be perfectly
comprehended as _facts_, before being treated as allegorical.
The next portion is little save an abridgement from Prideaux's
Connexion, taken in connection with the conclusions drawn by modern
discoveries, as detailed in Mr. G. Rawlinson's valuable edition of
Herodotus. It is hoped that by thus filling up the interval between
the New and Old Testaments, that children may thus be fairly able to
understand what they read in the Gospels of the Roman dominion, the
relation to Herod, the mutual hatred of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and
the enmity to the Samaritans.
The concluding lessons are offered with great diffidence, and with many
doubts whether the absence of detail may not prevent them from being
easily remembered; but it has been felt important that the connection of
the actual Church with that of the Apostles and Martyrs, should be made
evident to the general mind, and the present condition of the Church
accounted for. The choice of subjects has been very difficult; but it
is hoped that those selected may be those most needful to be known as
evidence that our present Church has every claim to the promise of Him
Who will abide with her for ever.
If older and more critical persons than those for whom the little work
is intended should cast an eye over it, the author hopes that they will
bear in mind how the need of being both brief and clear is apt to render
statements apparently bolder, and sometimes harsher, than where there is
room for qualification or argument; and that they will not always accuse
the work of unthinking boldness of assertion, where the softening is
omitted for fear both of wearying and perplexing the young reader.
The chronology, for the sake of the convenience of teachers and
scholars, is that of the margin of our Bibles.
The questions at the end are chiefly intended to direct the mind of
the learner to the point of each lesson. It will be perceived that the
answers must he prepared as well from the Bible as from the book; and
in most cases the teacher will in use have to multiply, and perhaps to
simplify them. One of their especial objects has been to show the ever
brightening stream of prophecy, and afterwards, its accomplishment alike
with regard to heathen nations, to the history of the Jews, of the
Church, and, above all, to the Life of our Blessed Lord; and it is hoped
that those who examine into them, cannot fail to be struck with the full
and perfect accordance of the beginning with the end; and if they learn
no other lesson, will have it impressed on them, how "the counsel of the
Lord endureth for ever."
Two tables have been added for the convenience of the scholar, one
giving the contemporary kings and prophets, the other the course
of historical chapters, with, as far as possible, the prophetical,
didactic, or poetical books, of the same date ranged in parallel lines.
It is hoped that these may be found useful in arranging lessons for
upper classes or pupil teachers.
_May 20th_, 1859.
TABLE OF THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE ACCORDING TO DATE.
HISTORICAL
BOOKS. PROPHETIC AND POETICAL BOOKS.
B.C.
4004
1689 Genesis
1529 Job
Psalm lxxxviii. by Heman, the Ezrahite, (See
1 Chron. ii. 6)
1491 Exodus
1491 Leviticus
1451 Numbers Psalm xc. and (perhaps) xci
1450 Deuteronomy
1451
1427 Joshua
1312 Ruth
1120 Judges
1171
1056 1 Samuel Psalms, certainly vii, xi, xvi, xvii, xxii, xxxi,
xxxiv, lvi, liv, lii, cix, xxxv, lvii, lviii,
cxliii, cxl, cxli, and many more
1056 1 Chronicles Psalms, certainly ii, vi, ix, xx,
1023 Psalms iii, iv, lv, lxii,
lxx, lxxi, cxliii, cxliv, all on
occasion of the war with Absalom
1017 2 Samuel 1015 from chap. ii xxi, xxiv, lxviii, xxxii, xxxiii,
xxxviii, xxxix, xl, li,
xxxii, ci, ciii.
1017 Psalms xviii, xxx, many more
of David
Psalm xxviii (other Psalms
of the elder Asaph) Chron.
xvi. 5
THE CHOSEN PEOPLE.
LESSON I.
THE PROMISE.
"The creature was made subject unto vanity, not willingly, but by reason
of Him who hath subjected the same in hope."--_Rom_. viii. 20.
When the earth first came from the hand of God, it was "very good," and
man, the best of all the beings it contained, was subjected to a trial
of obedience. The fallen angel gained the ear of the woman, and led her
to disobey, and to persuade her husband to do the same; and that failure
gave Satan power over the world, and over all Adam's children, bringing
sin and death upon the earth, and upon all, whether man or brute, who
dwelt therein.
Yet the merciful God would not give up all the creatures whom He had
made, to eternal destruction without a ray of hope, and even while
sentencing them to the punishment they had drawn on themselves, He held
out the promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the
serpent, the Devil; and they were taught by the sight of sacrifices of
animals, that the death of the innocent might yet atone for the sin of
the guilty; though these creatures were not of worth enough really to
bear the punishment for man.
Abel's offering of the lamb proved his faith, and thus was more worthy
than Cain's gift of the fruits of the earth. When Cain in his envy slew
his brother, he and his children were cast off by God, and those of his
younger brother, Seth, were accepted, until they joined themselves to
the ungodly daughters of Cain; and such sin prevailed, that Enoch, the
seventh from Adam, prophesied of judgment at hand, before he was taken
up alive into Heaven. When eight hundred and nine hundred years were
the usual term of men's lives, and the race was in full strength and
freshness, there was time for mind and body to come to great force;
and we find that the chief inventions of man belong to these sons of
Cain--the dwelling in tents, workmanship in brass and iron, and the use
of musical instruments. On the other hand, the more holy of the line of
Seth handed on from one to the other the history of the blessed days of
Eden, and of God's promise, and lived upon hope and faith.
Noah, whose father had been alive in the latter years of Adam's life,
was chosen from among the descendants of Seth, to be saved out of the
general ruin of the corrupt earth, and to carry on the promise. His
faith was first tried by the command to build the ark, though for
one hundred and twenty years all seemed secure, without any token of
judgment; and the disobedient refused to listen to his preaching. When
the time came, his own family of eight persons were alone found worthy
to be spared from the destruction, together with all the animals with
them preserved in the ark, two of each kind, and a sevenfold number of
those milder and purer animals which part the hoof and chew the cud, and
were already marked out as fit for sacrifice.
It was the year 2348 B.C. that Noah spent in floating upon the waste of
waters while every living thing was perishing round him, and afterwards
in seeing the floods return to their beds in oceans, lakes, and rivers,
which they shall never again overpass.
The ark first came aground on the mountain of Ararat, in Armenia, a
sacred spot to this day; and here God made His covenant with Noah,
renewing His first blessing to Adam, permitting the use of animal food;
promising that the course of nature should never be disturbed again till
the end of all things, and making the glorious tints of the rainbow,
which are produced by sunlight upon water, stand as the pledge of this
assurance. Of man He required abstinence from eating the blood of
animals, and from shedding the blood of man, putting, as it were, a mark
of sacredness upon life-blood, so as to lead the mind on to the Blood
hereafter to be shed.
Soon a choice was made among the sons of Noah. Ham mocked at his
father's infirmity, while his two brothers veiled it; and Noah was
therefore inspired to prophesy that Canaan, the son of the undutiful
Ham, should be accursed, and a servant of servants; that Shem should
especially belong to the Lord God, and that Japhet's posterity should be
enlarged, and should dwell in the tents of Shem. Thus Shem was marked as
the chosen, yet with hope that Japhet should share in his blessings.
It seems as if Ham had brought away some of the arts and habits of the
giant sons of Cain, for in all worldly prosperity his sons had the
advantage. In 2247 B. C. the sons of men banded themselves together to
build the Tower of Babel on the plain of Shinar, just below the hills of
Armenia, where the two great rivers Euphrates and Tigris make the flats
rich and fertile. For their presumption, God confounded their speech,
and the nations first were divided. Ham's children got all the best
regions; Nimrod, the child of his son Cush, kept Babel, built the first
city, and became the first king. Canaan's sons settled themselves in
that goodliest of all lands which bore his name; and Mizraim's children
obtained the rich and beautiful valley of the Nile, called Egypt. All
these were keen clever people, builders of cities, cultivators of the
land, weavers and embroiderers, earnest after comfort and riches, and
utterly forgetting, or grievously corrupting, the worship of God. Others
of the race seem to have wandered further south, where the heat of the
sun blackened their skins; and their strong constitution, and dull meek
temperament, marked them out to all future generations as a prey to be
treated like animals of burden, so as to bear to the utmost the curse of
Canaan.
Shem's sons, simpler than those of Ham, continued to live in tents and
watch their cattle, scattered about in the same plains, called from
the two great streams, Mesopotamia, or the land of rivers. Some
travelled westwards, and settling in China and India, became a rich and
wealthy people, but constantly losing more and more the recollection of
the truth; and some went on in time from isle to isle to the western
hemisphere--lands where no other foot should tread till the world should
be grown old.
Japhet's children seemed at first the least favoured, for no place,
save the cold dreary north, was found for most of them. Some few, the
children of Javan, found a home in the fair isles of the Mediterranean,
but the greater part were wild horsemen in Northern Asia and Europe.
This was a dark and dismal training, but it braced them so that in
future generations they proved to have far more force and spirit than
was to be found among the dwellers in milder climates.
LESSON II.
THE PATRIARCHS.
"The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham."--Acts, vii. 2.
Among the sons of Shem (called Hebrews after his descendant Heber, who
dwelt in Mesopotamia) was Abram, the good and faithful man, whom God
chose out to be the father of the people in whom He was going to set His
Light. In the year 1921, He tried Abram's faith by calling on him to
leave his home, and go into a land which he knew not, but which should
belong to his children after him--Abram, who had no child at all.
Yet he obeyed and believed, and was led into the beautiful hilly land
then held by the sons of Canaan, where he was a stranger, wandering with
his flocks and herds and servants from one green pasture to another,
without a loot of land to call his own. For showing his faith by thus
doing as he was commanded, Abram was rewarded by the promise that in
his Seed should all the families of the earth be blessed; his name was
changed to Abraham, which means a father of a great multitude; and as a
sign that he had entered into a covenant with God, he was commanded to
circumcise his children.
One son, Ishmael, had by this time been born to him of the bondmaid
Hagar; but the child of promise, Isaac, the son of his wife Sarah, was
not given till he was a hundred years old. Ishmael was cast out for
mocking at his half-brother, the heir of the promises; but in answer to
his father's prayers, he too became the father of a great nation, namely
the Arabs, who still live in the desert, with their tents, their flocks,
herds, and fine horses, much as Ishmael himself must have lived. They
are still circumcised, and honour Abraham as their father; and with them
are joined the Midianites and other tribes descended from Abraham's last
wife, Keturah.
Isaac alone was to inherit the promise, and it was renewed to him and
to his father, when their faith had been proved by their submission to
God's command, that Isaac should be offered as a burnt-offering upon
Mount Moriah, a sign of the Great Sacrifice long afterwards, when God
did indeed provide Himself a Lamb.
When Abraham bought the Cave of Machpelah for a, burial-place, it was
in the full certainty that though he was now a stranger in the land, it
would be his children's home; and it was there that he and the other
patriarchs were buried after their long and faithful pilgrimage.
Isaac's wife, Rebekah, was fetched from Abraham's former home, in
Mesopotamia, that he might not be corrupted by marrying a Canaanite.
Between his two sons, Esau and Jacob, there was again a choice; for God
had prophesied that the elder should serve the younger, and Esau did not
value the birthright which would have made him heir to no lands
that would enrich himself, and to a far-off honour that he did not
understand. So despising the promises of God, he made his right over
to his brother for a little food, when he was hungry, and though he
repented with tears when it was too late, he could not win back what he
had once thrown away.
His revengeful anger when he found how he had been supplanted, made
Jacob flee to his mother's family in Mesopotamia, and there dwell for
many years, ere returning to Canaan with his large household, there to
live in the manner that had been ordained for the first heirs of the
promise. Esau went away to Mount Seir, to the south of the Promised
Land, and his descendants were called the Edomites, from his name,
meaning the Red; and so, too, the sea which washed their shores, took
the name of the Sea of Edom, or the Red Sea. They were also named
Kenites from his son Kenaz. Their country, afterwards called Idumea, was
full of rocks and precipices, and in these the Edomites hollowed
out caves for themselves, making them most beautiful, with pillars
supporting the roof within, and finely-carved entrances, cut with
borders, flowers, and scrolls, so lasting that the cities of Bosra and
Petra are still a wonder to travellers, though they have been empty
and deserted for centuries past. The Edomites did not at once lose the
knowledge of the true God; indeed, as many believe, of them was born the
prophet Job, whom Satan was permitted to try with every trouble he could
conjure up, so that his friends believed that such sufferings could only
be brought on him for some great sin; whereas he still maintained that
the ways of God were hidden, and gave utterance to one of the clearest
ancient prophecies of the Redeemer and the Resurrection. At length God
answered him from the whirlwind, and proclaimed His greatness through
His unsearchable works; and Job, for his patience in the time of
adversity, was restored to far more than his former prosperity.
Jacob's name was changed to Israel, which meant a prince before God; and
his whole family were taken into the covenant, though the three elder
sons, for their crimes, forfeited the foremost places, which passed to
Judah and Joseph; and Levi was afterwards chosen as the tribe set apart
for the priesthood, the number twelve being made up by reckoning Ephraim
and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, as heads of tribes, like their uncles.
Long ago, Abraham had been told that his seed should sojourn in Egypt;
and when the envious sons of Israel sold their innocent brother Joseph,
their sin was bringing about God's high purpose. Joseph was inspired
to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, which foretold the famine; and when
by-and-by his brothers came to buy the corn that he had laid up, he made
himself known, forgave them with all his heart, and sent them to fetch
his father to see him once more. Then the whole family of Israel,
seventy in number, besides their wives, came and settled in the land
of Goshen, about the year 1707, and were there known by the name of
Hebrews, after Heber, the great-grand-son of Shem. There in Goshen,
Jacob ended the days of his pilgrimage, desiring his sons to carry his
corpse back to the Cave of Machpelah, there to be buried, and await
their return when the time of promise should come. He gave his blessing
to all his sons, and was inspired to mark out Joseph among them as the
one whose children should have the choicest temporal inheritance; but of
the fourth son, he said, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor
a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come." Shiloh meant Him
that should be sent, and Judah was thus marked out to be the princely
tribe, which was to have the rule until the Seed should come.
LESSON III.
EGYPT.
"When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt."--_Hosea_, xi. 1.
The country where the Israelites had taken up their abode, was the
valley watered by the great river Nile. There is nothing but desert,
wherever this river does not spread itself, for it never rains, and
there would be dreadful drought, if every year, when the snow melts upon
the mountains far south, where is the source of the stream, it did not
become so much swelled as to spread far beyond its banks, and overflow
all the flat space round it. Then as soon as the water subsides, the hot
sun upon the mud that it has left brings up most beautiful grass, and
fine crops of corn with seven or nine ears to one stalk; grand fruits of
all kinds, melons, pumpkins, and cucumbers, flax for weaving linen, and
everything that a people can desire. Indeed, the water of the river is
so delicious, that it is said that those who have once tasted it are
always longing to drink it again.
The sons of Mizraim, son of Ham, who first found out this fertile
country, were a very clever race, and made the most of the riches of the
place. They made dykes and ditches to guide the floodings into their
fields and meadows; they cultivated the soil till it was one beautiful
garden; they wove their flax into fine linen; and they made bricks of
their soft clay, and hewed stone from the hills higher up the river, so
that their buildings have been the wonder of all ages since. They had
kings to rule them, and priests to guide their worship; but these
priests had very wrong and corrupt notions themselves, and let the poor
ignorant people believe even greater folly than they did themselves.
They thought that the great God lived among them in the shape of a bull
with one spot on his back like an eagle, and one on his tongue like a
beetle; and this creature they called Apis, and tended with the utmost
care. When he died they all went into mourning, and lamented till a calf
like him was found, and was brought home with the greatest honour; and
for his sake all cattle were sacred, and no one allowed to kill them.
Besides the good Power, they thought there was an evil one as strong as
the good, and they worshipped him likewise, to beg him to do them no
harm; so the dangerous crocodiles of the Nile were sacred, and it was
forbidden to put them to death. They had a dog-god and a cat-goddess,
and they honoured the beetle because they saw it rolling a ball of earth
in which to lay its eggs, and fancied it an emblem of eternity; and thus
all these creatures were consecrated, and when they died were rolled up
in fine linen and spices, just as the Egyptians embalmed their own dead.
Mummies, as we call these embalmed Egyptian corpses, are often found
now, laid up in beautiful tombs, cut out in the rock, and painted in
colours still fresh with picture writing, called hieroglyphics, telling
in tokens all the history of the person whose body they contained. The
kings built tombs for themselves, like mountains, square at the bottom,
but each course of stones built within the last till they taper to a
point at the top. These are called pyramids, and have within them very
small narrow passages, leading to a small chamber, just large enough to
hold a king's coffin.
They had enormous idols hewn out of stone. The head of one, which you
may see in the British Museum, is far taller than the tallest man, and
yet the face is really handsome, and there are multitudes more, both of
them and of their temples, still remaining on the banks of the Nile.
The children of Israel, being chiefly shepherds, kept apart from the
Egyptians at first; but as time went on they learnt some of their
habits, and many of them had begun to worship their idols and forget the
truth, when their time of affliction came. The King of Egypt, becoming
afraid of having so numerous and rich a people settled in his dominions,
tried to keep them down by hard bondage and heavy labour. He made them
toil at his great buildings, and oppressed them in every possible
manner; and when he found that they still throve and increased, he made
the cruel decree, that every son who was born to them should be cast
into the river.
But man can do nothing against the will of God, and this murderous
ordinance proved the very means of causing one of these persecuted
Hebrew infants to be brought up in the palace of Pharaoh, and instructed
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, the only people who at that time had
any human learning. Even in his early life, Moses seems to have been
aware that he was to be sent to put an end to the bondage of his people,
for, choosing rather to suffer with them than to live in prosperity
with their oppressors, he went out among them and tried to defend them,
and to set them at peace with one another; but the time was not yet
come, and they thrust him from them, so that he was forced to fly for
shelter to the desert, among the Midianite descendants of Abraham. After
he had spent forty years there as a shepherd, God appeared to him, and
then first revealed Himself as JEHOVAH, the Name proclaiming His eternal
self-existence, I AM THAT I AM, a Name so holy, that the translators of
our Bible have abstained from repeating it where it occurs, but have put
the Name, the LORD, in capital letters in its stead. Moses was then sent
to Egypt to lead out the Israelites on their way back to the land so
long promised to their fore-fathers; and when Pharaoh obstinately
refused to let them go, the dreadful plagues and wonders that were sent
on the country were such as to show that their gods were no gods; since
their river, the glory of their land, became a loathsome stream of
blood, creeping things came and went at the bidding of the Lord, and
their adored cattle perished before their eyes. At last, on the night of
the Passover, in each of the houses unmarked by the blood of the Lamb,
there was a great cry over the death of the first-born son; and where
the sign of faith was seen, there was a mysterious obedient festival
held by families prepared for a strange new journey. Then the hard heart
yielded to terror, and Israel went oat of Egypt as a nation. They had
come in in 1707 as seventy men, they went out in 1491 as six hundred
thousand, and their enemies, following after them, sank like lead in the
mighty waters of that arm of the Red Sea, which had divided to let the
chosen pass through.
LESSON IV.
THE WILDERNESS.
"Where Is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of
His flock? Where is He that put His Holy Spirit within him?"--_Isaiah_,
lxiii. 11.
When Moses had led the 600,000 men, with their wives, children, and
cattle, beyond the reach of the Egyptians, they were in a small
peninsula, between the arms of the Red Sea, with the wild desolate peaks
of Mount Horeb towering in the midst, and all around grim stony crags,
with hardly a spring of water; and though there were here and there
slopes of grass, and bushes of hoary-leaved camel-thorn, and long-spined
shittim or acacia, nothing bearing fruit for human beings. There were
strange howlings and crackings in the mountains, the sun glared back
from the arid stones and rocks, and the change seemed frightful after
the green meadows and broad river of Egypt.
Frightened and faithless, the Israelites cried out reproachfully to
Moses to ask how they should live in this desert place, forgetting that
the Pillar of cloud and fire proved that they were under the care of Him
who had brought them safely out of the hands of their enemies. In His
mercy God bore with their murmurs, fed them with manna from Heaven, and
water out of the flinty rock; and gave them the victory over the Edomite
tribe of robber Amalekites at Rephidim, where Joshua fought, and Moses,
upheld by Aaron and Hur, stretched forth his hands the whole day. Then,
fifty days after their coming out of Egypt, He called them round the
peak of Sinai to hear His own Voice proclaim the terms of the new
Covenant.
The Covenant with Abraham had circumcision for the token, faith as the
condition, and the blessing to all nations as the promise. This Covenant
remained in full force, but in the course of the last four hundred
years, sin had grown so much that the old standard, handed down from the
patriarchs, had been forgotten, and men would not have known what was
right, nor how far they fell from it, without a written Law. This Law,
in ten rules, all meeting together in teaching Love to God and man,
commanded in fact perfection, without which no man could be fit to stand
in the sight of God. He spoke it with His own Mouth, from amid cloud,
flame, thunder, and sounding trumpets, on Mount Sinai, while the
Israelites watched around in awe and terror, unable to endure the dread
of that Presence. The promise of this Covenant was, that if they would
keep the Law, they should dwell prosperously in the Promised Land, and
be a royal priesthood and peculiar treasure unto God, They answered with
one voice, "All the words the Lord hath said will we do;" and Moses made
a sacrifice, and sprinkled them with the blood, to consecrate them and
confirm their oath. It was the blood of the Old Testament. Then he went
up into the darkness of the cloud on the mountain top, there fasting,
to talk with God, and to receive the two Tables of Stone written by
the Finger of God. This was, as some believe, the first writing in the
letters of the alphabet ever known in the world, and the Books of
Moses were the earliest ever composed, and set down with the pen upon
parchment.
Those Laws were too strict for man in his fallen state. Keep them he
could not; breaking them, he became too much polluted to be fit for
mercy. Even while living in sight of the cloud on the Mountain, where
Moses was known to be talking with God, the Israelites lost faith, and
set up a golden calf in memory of the Egyptian symbol of divinity,
making it their leader instead of Moses. Such a transgression of their
newly-made promise so utterly forfeited their whole right to the
covenant, that Moses destroyed the precious tables, the token of the
mutual engagement, and God threatened to sweep them off in a moment and
to fulfil His oaths to their forefather in the children of Moses alone.
Then Moses, having purified the camp by slaying the worst offenders,
stood between the rest and the wrath of God, mediating for them until he
obtained mercy for them, and a renewal of the Covenant. Twice he spent
forty days in that awful Presence, where glorious visions were revealed
to him; the Courts of Heaven itself, to be copied by him, by Divine
guidance, in the Ark and Tabernacle, where his brother Aaron, and his
seed after him, were to minister as Priests, setting forth to the eye
how there was a Holy Place, whence men were separated by sin, and how it
could only be entered by a High Priest, after a sacrifice of atonement.
Every ordinance of this service was a shadow of good things to come, and
was therefore strictly enjoined on Israel, as part of the conditions of
the Covenant, guiding their faith onwards by this acted prophecy; and
therewith God, as King of His people, put forth other commands, some
relating to their daily habits, others to their government as a nation,
all tending to keep them separate from other nations. For transgressions
of such laws as these, or for infirmities of human nature, regarded as
stains, cleansing sacrifices were permitted. For offences against
the Ten Commandments, there was no means of purchasing remission; no
animal's, nay, no man's life could equal such a cost; there was nothing
for it but to try to dwell on the hope, held out to Adam and Abraham,
and betokened by the sacrifices and the priesthood, of some fuller
expiation yet to come; some means of not only obtaining pardon, but of
being worthy of mercy.
The Israelites could not even be roused to look for the present temporal
promise, and hankered after the fine soil and rich fruits of Egypt,
rather than the beautiful land of hill and valley that lay before them;
and when their spies reported it to be full of hill forts, held by
Canaanites of giant stature, a cowardly cry of despair broke out, that
they would return to Egypt. Only two of the whole host, besides Moses,
were ready to trust to Him who had delivered them from Pharaoh, and had
led them through the sea. Therefore those two alone of the grown-up men
were allowed to set foot in the Promised Land. Till all the rest should
have fallen in the wilderness, and a better race have been trained up,
God would not help them to take possession. In their wilfulness they
tried to advance, and were defeated, and thus were obliged to endure
their forty years' desert wandering.
Even Moses had his patience worn out by their fretful faithlessness,
and committed an act of disobedience, for which he was sentenced not to
enter the land, but to die on the borders after one sight of the promise
of his fathers. Under him, however, began the work of conquest; the rich
pasture lands of Gilead and Basan were subdued, and the tribes of Reuben
and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, were permitted to take these as
their inheritance, though beyond the proper boundary, the Jordan. The
Moabites took alarm, though these, as descended from Abraham's nephew
Lot, were to be left unharmed; and their king, Balak, sent, as it
appears, even to Mesopotamia for Balaam, a true prophet, though a guilty
man, in hopes that he would bring down the curse of God on them. Balaam,
greedy of reward, forced, as it were, consent from God to go to Balak,
though warned that his words would not be in his own power. As he stood
on the hill top with Balak, vainly endeavouring to curse, a glorious
stream of blessing flowed from his lips, revealing, not only the fate of
all the tribes around, even for a thousand years, but proclaiming the
Sceptre and Star that should rise out of Jacob to execute vengeance on
his foes. But finding himself unable to curse Israel, the miserable
prophet devised a surer means of harming them: he sent tempters among
them to cause them to corrupt themselves, and so effectual was this
invention, that the greater part of the tribe of Simeon were ensnared,
and a great plague was sent in chastisement. It was checked by the zeal
of the young priest, Phineas, under whose avenging hand so many of the
guilty tribe fell, that their numbers never recovered the blow. Then
after a prayer of atonement, a great battle was fought, and the wretched
Balaam was among the slain.
The forty years were over, Moses's time was come, and he gave his last
summing up of the Covenant, and sung his prophetic song. His authority
was to pass to his servant, the faithful spy, bearing the prophetic name
of Joshua; and he was led by God to the top of Mount Nebo, whence he
might see in its length and breadth, the pleasant land, the free hills,
the green valleys watered by streams, the wooded banks of Jordan, the
pale blue expanse of the Mediterranean joining with the sky to the west;
and to the north, the snowy hills of Hermon, which sent their rain and
dew on all the goodly mountain land. It had been the hope of that old
man's hundred and twenty years, and he looked forth on it with his eye
not dim, nor his natural force abated; but God had better things for him
in Heaven, and there upon the mountain top he died alone, and God buried
him in the sepulchre whereof no man knoweth. None was like to him in the
Old Covenant, who stood between God and the Israelites, but he left a
promise that a Prophet should be raised up like unto himself.
LESSON V.
ISRAEL IN CANAAN.
"But He was so merciful, that He forgave their misdeeds and destroyed
them not."--_Psalm_ Lxxviii. 38.
In the year 1431, Joshua led the tribes through the divided waters of
the Jordan, and received strength and skill to scatter the heathen
before them, conquer the cities, and settle them in their inheritance.
The Land of Canaan was very unlike Egypt, with its flat soil, dry
climate, and single river. It was a narrow strip, inclosed between the
Mediterranean Sea and the river Jordan, which runs due south down a
steep wooded cleft into the Dead Sea, the lowest water in the world, in
a sort of pit of its own, with barren desolation all round it, so as to
keep in memory the ruin of the cities of the plain. In the north, rise
the high mountains of Libanus, a spur from which goes the whole length
of the land, and forms two slopes, whence the rivers flow, either
westward into the Great Sea, or eastward into the Jordan, Many of these
hills are too dry and stony to be cultivated; but the slopes of some
have fine grassy pastures, and the soil of the valleys is exceedingly
rich, bearing figs, vines, olive trees, and corn in plenty, wherever it
is properly tilled. With such hills, rivers, valleys, and pastures, it
was truly a goodly land, and when God's blessing was on it, it was the
fairest spot where man could live. When the Israelites entered it,
every hill was crowned by a strongly-walled and fortified town, the
abode of some little king of one of the seven Canaanite nations who
were given into their hands to be utterly destroyed. Though they were
commanded to make a complete end of all the people in each place they
took, they were forbidden to seize more than they could till, lest the
empty ruins should serve as a harbour for wild beasts; but they had
their several lots marked out where they might spread when their numbers
should need room. As Jacob had promised to Joseph, Ephraim and half
Manaseh had the richest portion, nearly in the middle, and Shiloh, where
the Tabernacle was set up, was in their territory; Judah and Benjamin
were in a very wild rocky part to the southwards, between the two seas,
with only Simeon beyond them; then came, north of Manasseh, the fine
pasture lands of Issachar and Zebulon, and a small border for Asher
between Libanus and the sea; while Reuben, Gad, and the rest of
Manasseh, were to the east of the Jordan, where they had begged to
settle themselves in the meadows of Bashan, and the balmy thickets of
Gilead.
Many a fortified town was still held by the Canaanites, in especial
Jebus, on Mount Moriah, between Judah and Benjamin; and close to Asher,
the two great merchant cities of the Zidonians upon the sea-shore.
These were called Tyre and Zidon, and their inhabitants were named
Phoenicians, and were the chief sailors and traders of the Old World.
From seeing a dog's mouth stained purple after eating a certain
shell-fish on their coast, they had learnt how to dye woollen garments
of a fine purple or scarlet, which was thought the only colour fit for
kings, and these were sent out to all the countries round, in exchange
for balm and spices from Gilead; corn and linen from Egypt; ivory,
pearls, and rubies from India; gold from the beds of rivers in Chittim
or Asia Minor; and silver from Spain, then called Tarshish. Thus they
grew very rich and powerful, and were skilful in all they undertook. The
art of writing, which they seem to have caught from the Hebrews, went
from them to the Greeks, sons of Japhet, who lived more to the north, in
what were called the Isles of the Gentiles.
The Canaanites had a still fouler worship than the other sons of Ham in
Egypt. They had many gods, whom they called altogether Baalim, or lords;
and goddesses, whom they called Ashtoreth; and they thought that each
had some one city or people to defend; and that the Lord Jehovah of the
Israelites was such another as these, instead of being the only God
of Heaven and earth. Among these there was one great Baal to whom the
Phoenicians were devoted, and an especial Ashtoreth, the moon, or Queen
of Heaven, who was thought to have a lover named Tammuz, who died with
the flowers in the autumn and revived in the spring, and the women
took delight in wailing and bemoaning his death, and then dancing and
offering cakes in honour of his revival. Besides these, there was the
planet Saturn, or as they called him, Moloch or Remphan, of whom they
had a huge brazen statue with the hands held a little apart, set up over
a furnace; they put poor little children between these brazen hands, and
left them to drop into the flames below as an offering to this dreadful
god.
Well might such worship be called abomination, and the Israelites be
forbidden to hold any dealings with those who followed it. As long
as the generation lived who had been bred up in the wilderness, they
obeyed, and felt themselves under the rule of God their King, Who made
His Will known at Shiloh by the signs on the breastplate of the High
Priest, while judges and elders governed in the cities. But afterwards
they began to be tempted to make friends with their heathen neighbours,
and thus learnt to believe in their false deities, and to hanker after
the service of some god who made no such strict laws of goodness as
those by which they were bound. As certainly as they fell away, so
surely the punishment came, and God stirred up some of these dangerous
friends to attack them. Sometimes it was a Canaanite tribe with iron
chariots who mightily oppressed them; sometimes the robber shepherds,
the Midianites, would burst in and carry off their cattle and their
crops, until distress brought the Israelites back to a better mind, and
they cried out to the Lord. Then He would raise up a mighty warrior, and
give him the victory, so that he became ruler and judge over Israel; but
no sooner was he dead, than they would fall back again into idolatry,
and receive another chastisement, repent, and be again delivered. This
went on for about 400 years, the Israelites growing constantly worse. In
the latter part of this time, their chief enemies were the Philistines,
in the borders of Simeon and Judah, near the sea. These were not
Canaanites, but had once dwelt in Egypt, and then, after living for a
time in Cyprus, had come and settled in Gaza and Ashkelon, and three
other very strong cities on the coast, where they worshipped a fish-god,
called Dagon. They had no king, but were ruled by lords of their five
cities, and made terrible inroads upon all the country round; until at
last the Israelites, in their self-will, fancied they could turn them to
flight by causing the Ark to be carried out to battle by the two corrupt
young priests, sons of Eli, whose doom had already been pronounced--that
they should both die in one day. They were slain, when the Ark was taken
by the enemies, and their aged father fell back and broke his neck in
the shock of the tidings. The glory had departed; and though God proved
His might by shattering Dagon's image before the Ark, and plaguing the
Philistines wherever they carried it, till they were forced to send
it home in a manner which again showed the Divine Hand, yet it never
returned to Shiloh; God deserted the place where His Name had not been
kept holy; the token of the Covenant seemed to be lost; the Philistines
ruled over the broken and miserable Israelites, and there was only one
promise to comfort them--that the Lord would raise up unto Himself
a faithful Priest. Already there was growing up at Shiloh the young
Levite, Samuel, dedicated by his mother, and bred up by Eli. He is
counted as first of the prophets, that long stream of inspired men,
who constantly preached righteousness, and to whom occasionally future
events were made known. He was also last of the Judges, or heaven-sent
deliverers. As soon as he grew up, he rallied the Israelites, restored
the true worship, as far as could be with the Ark in concealment, and
sent them out to battle. They defeated the Philistines, and under
Samuel, again became a free nation.
LESSON VI.
THE KINGDOM OF ALL ISRAEL.
"As is the fat taken away from the peace-offering, so was David chosen
out of the children of Israel ... In all his works he praised the Holy
One Most High with words of glory .... The Lord took away his sins and
exalted his horn for ever, He gave him a covenant of kings, and a throne
of glory in Israel."--_Ecclus._ xlvii. II.
When Samuel grew old, the Israelites would not trust to God to choose a
fresh guardian for them, but cried out for a king to keep them together
and lead them to war like other nations. Their entreaty was granted, and
in 1094 B. C. Saul the son of Kish, of the small but fierce tribe of
Benjamin, was appointed by God, and anointed like a priest by Samuel,
on the understanding that he was not to rule by his own will, like the
princes around, but as God's chief officer, to enforce His laws and
carry out His bidding.
This Saul would not do. When, instead of lurking in caves, with no
weapons save their tools for husbandry, the Israelites, under his
leading, gradually became free and warlike; and his son Jonathan and
uncle Abner were able generals, he fancied he could go his own way, he
took on him to offer sacrifice, as the heathen kings did; and when sent
forth to destroy all belonging to the Amalekites, he spared the king
and the choicest of the spoil. For this he was sentenced not to be the
founder of a line of kings, and the doom filled him with wrath against
the priesthood, while an evil spirit was permittted to trouble his soul,
Samuel's last great act was to anoint the youngest son of Jesse the
Bethlehemite, the great grandchild of the loving Moabitess, Ruth, the
same whom God had marked beside his sheepfolds as the man after His own
Heart, the future father of the sceptred line of Judah, and of the
"Root and Offspring of David, the bright and morning Star."
Fair and young, full of inspired song, and of gallant courage, the youth
David was favoured as the minstrel able to drive the evil spirit from
Saul, the champion who had slain the giant of Gath. He was the king's
son-in-law, the prince's bosom friend; but, as the hopes of Israel
became set on him, Saul began to hate him as if he were a supplanter,
though Jonathan submitted to the Will that deprived himself of a throne,
and loved his friend as faithfully as ever. At last, by Jonathan's
counsel, David fled from court, and Saul in his rage at thinking him
aided by the priests, slew all who fell into his hands, thus cutting off
his own last link with Heaven. A trusty band of brave men gathered round
David, but he remained a loyal outlaw, and always abstained from any
act against his sovereign, even though Saul twice lay at his mercy.
Patiently he tarried the Lord's leisure, and the time came at last. The
Philistines overran the country, and chased Saul even to the mountain
fastnesses of Gilboa, where the miserable man, deserted by God, tried to
learn his fate through evil spirits, and only met the certainty of his
doom. In the next day's battle his true-hearted son met a soldier's
death; but Saul, when wounded by the archers, tried in vain to put an
end to his own life, and was, after a reign of forty years, at last
slain by an Amalekite, who brought his crown to David, and was executed
by him for having profanely slain the Lord's anointed.
For seven years David reigned only in his own tribe of Judah, while the
brave Abner kept the rest of the kingdom for Saul's son, Ishbosheth,
until, taking offence because Ishbosheth refused to give him one of
Saul's widows to wife, he offered to come to terms with David, but in
leaving the place of meeting, he was treacherously killed by David's
overbearing nephew, Joab, in revenge for the death of a brother whom he
had slain in single combat. Ishbosheth was soon after murdered by two of
his own servants, and David becoming sole king, ruled prudently with all
his power, and with anxious heed to the will of his true King. He was a
great conqueror, and was the first to win for Israel her great city
on Mount Moriah. It had once been called Salem, or peace, when the
mysterious priest-king, Melchizedek, reigned there in Abraham's
time, but since it had been held by the Jebusites, and called Jebus.
When David took it, he named it Jerusalem, or the vision of peace,
fortified it, built a palace there, and fetched thither with songs and
solemn dances, the long-hidden Ark, so that it might be the place where
God's Name was set, the centre of worship; and well was the spot fitted
for the purpose. It was a hill girdled round by other hills, and so
strong by nature, that when built round with towers and walls, an enemy
could hardly have taken it. David longed to raise a solid home for the
Ark, but this was not a work permitted to a man of war and bloodshed,
and he could only collect materials, and restore the priests to their
offices, giving them his own glorious Book of Psalms, full of praise,
prayer, and entreaty, to be sung for ever before the Lord, by courses of
Levites relieving one another, that so the voice of praise might never
die out.
David likewise made the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites
pay him tribute, and became the most powerful king in the East,
receiving the fulfilment of the promises to Abraham; but even he was
far from guiltless. He was a man of strong passions, though of a tender
heart, and erred greatly, both from hastiness and weakness, but never
without repentance, and his Psalms of contrition have ever since been
the treasure of the penitent. Chastisement visited his sins, and
was meekly borne, but bereavement and rebellion, care, sorrow, and
disappointment, severely tried the Sweet Psalmist of Israel, shepherd,
prophet, soldier, and king, ere in 1016, in his seventieth year, he went
to his rest, after having been king for forty years, he was assured that
his seed should endure for ever.